Come For You
by Cheryl W
Summary: Betrayed by fellow hunters, his odds of surviving to see another day dwindling, Dean still knows one thing for sure: Sam will always come for him. No Slash.
1. Chapter 1: Stuck

Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, Nickelback or Scott Stapp's songs, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: This is set after the episode "The Werther Project". It's blatant Dean hurt/comfort with a thin plot because that's the mood I'm in. It's also serves as my opening to slip in some songs I think fit Supernatural's current themes to a "T".

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Chapter One: Stuck

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He was going nowhere. That's what Dean's struggling and agony have summed up for him. He wasn't playing his own hero this time, not with the rebar skewering him through his back and peeking out of his side just under his left ribs. Of course it had to be rebar that was still an immovable part of the derelict warehouse's wall.

He wasn't sure if the vamp's luck was just that good to throw him the right way to land here…or his own luck was just that awesomely bad. Luck, good or bad, didn't change the cold hard facts that he wasn't getting himself free. Course that might not be a problem considering the vamp was coming at him and it wasn't to make him a convert. No, not when he was the one to wipe out her nest.

Vamps and their friggin' loyalty.

Loyalty which apparently trumped hunter loyalty because Michele had been one of those before she got fitted for her second row of sharp teeth. It was a sick joke that the dark haired, Hispanic woman was stunning, even with her new dental implants, and Dean would have so hit on her the last hunt they did together…if Dom, her muscle bound boyfriend hunter, wasn't in the picture. The same Dom who had led him right into this trap and sidelined Sam to stay with him. ' _If that steroid menance touches Sam_ ….' he internally snarled before he realized that Michele was about to reach him in her next two steps. "Come on, Michele, you're still in there, still know right from wrong," he said, hoping he wasn't wrong.

As she leaned down over him, her long brown hair curtained her face but did nothing to soften the threat that her exposed fangs brought across loud and clear.

Having lost his knife and gun in the scuffle that came before, Dean sent his hands blindly on the floor around him, searching for a weapon, came up with a handful of dust and dirt, which he promptly threw into her face, and yeah, vamps weren't immune to eye irritation. She stumbled back with an enraged cry of pain as she held her eyes.

As much as Dean wanted to do something useful with the reprieve he had achieved, he couldn't. Couldn't move, couldn't locate anything lethal for a weapon and didn't have some magical chant to stop a vamp. If felt so wrong that he was actually wishing he was dealing with a hell spawn, something that a few mutterings of Latin could send packing.

Instead, he was down to using his words, which hadn't gotten him jack so far. "Fine, you kill me but how long do you think it'll be before Dom starts to look like BBQ ribs to you, huh? You think this is a diet you get to go on and off of like the friggin' Atkins! What about when you cross another vampire nest and they invite you into their clan… only catch is…you have to kill your human boytoy?! Does Dom mean that little to you! Because I was there, I saw the way you flipped out when we did that last hunt and you thought he was dead."

Angrily wiping the last dust from her eyes, Michele snarled at Dean, "Dom didn't kill my nest, you did! I could smell you all over their bodies."

"Ok…gross," Dean mumbled with a look of repulsion. "But we're talking about you, your actions. Dom's still with you, loves you enough to throw me under the bus to give you what you want. You don't have to live by some vampire code of ethics, I know, I had a friend who drank blood bags and valued human life, valued _my life_." Dean's thoughts of Benny hurt him as much as they brought a wave of gratitude for having met the vampire, having his belief about vampires being proven wrong. Found that he was glad for the Werther box's mojo just for the opportunity to see his friend again, even if it wasn't real.

"I value Dom's life," Michele heatedly declared. "I would never hurt him. Never."

Dean's lips twisted into a bitter gesture. "Never….like you'd never become one of the things you hunt? Like you'd never take an innocent human life? You'd never turn into something like what killed your sister?"

The next breath, Michele's vampire finger nails where sinking into Dean's neck as her hand closed around his throat. "Don't talk about my sister. EVER!"

"Rosie, right?" Dean wheezed out around the pressure in his windpipe, pretty sure his hands wrapped around her wrist, impeding her grip, was the only reason he was able to still draw in any breath at all. "She was fed on by Vetalas _for days_ until she was finally lucky enough to die. Killed by a blood sucker, not so unlike what you are now." Though he saw the punch coming, Dean didn't try to deflect it, let it snap his head to the right, felt the taste of blood on his lips.

Realizing that, for Dean Winchester, her punch was like a love tap compared to his pain tolerance level, Michele upped her game and dropped her free hand onto his chest, gave a sultry smile as she ran her hand down his chest…to the rebar. And then she viciously jerked the metal protruding from his side to the right.

Dean yelled in agony as it felt like Michele was ripping the rebar across his gut. Suddenly his early desire to "just" be up against hell spawn took a bad turn, because the hell spawn making an appearance could easily turn out to be him if Michele did her worst, if he died in this warehouse.

And, as terrifying as the prospect of going darkside once more was, what was worse was knowing Sam would try to save him again, that he might kill his brother this time. Or, like that fake Benny had claimed, if Sam or Cas did the right thing and put him down, would it wreck them? Would he be the camel that broke the back after everything Sam and Cas had been through, would he ruin them once and for all?

He couldn't take that chance, wouldn't put that on them. No, he had to stay undemonfied, not for himself, but for his brother, for his best friend. And that meant he had to stay alive, had to survive whatever Michele did to him. That resolve had Dean doing something he rarely, did: plead for mercy.

"Please Michele, don't," he choked out, loosening one of his hands from her wrist to find the hand she had coiled around the rebar, tried to stop her from shifting the metal more, doing further damage. "You want me to say I'm sorry for killing your nest, Ok. I'm sorry. And I'll take vampires off our hit list. Won't hunt you or your kind. Just don't kill me."

Chuckling darkly, Michele smiled and showed her perfect, white human teeth. "Dean Winchester begging for his life. Never thought I'd see the day."

"Yeah, well….today's the day then." Though it griped Dean to do it, make him sick inside to lower himself to pleading, to near groveling but more was at stake than his pride…than even his life or his soul. Sam's life, Sam's soul was on the line, especially if his brother resorted to dark tactics to try and get him back human again if he turned. And for Sam…Dean would do a lot worse than begging for his life.

"Please just let me go. Walk away, don't do something that'll put even more of a barrier between you and Dom. He's a hunter for a reason too, you know that. Because he hates what killed his friend in high school. But he's doing his best to not let what you are change how he feels about you but if you start killing hunters….he might not be able to stop wondering when you'll turn on him."

"Dom trusts me, loves me even for what I am now," Michele insisted but Dean could read the flicker of doubt in her eyes.

"And you love him for what he is: a good man. A man who helps people, protects people from things they don't know even exist. But if you make him your accomplice, if you kill me and he knows he helped you do it by sending me here, sidelining Sam with him, it'll change him, how he feels about himself…and you."

"Well aren't you Mr. Good Will Hunting," Michcle snorted before leaning close to Dean, her eyes holding his as she dropped her voice, conspiringly letting him in on a secret. "Problem with your theory is….Dom's the one who thought of this set up: you with me, Sam with him. This building, this out of the way location. Even helped set up a patsy to take the fall for your death so Sammy won't track me down for revenge. Dom's ideas, all of them. So tell me again how I'm going to lose his love….because to me, he's proven that he'll never leave me, that when the time's right, I'll turn him and we'll have forever together."

Suddenly anger whitewashed Dean's resolve to not get killed. When he smiled, his teeth were bloody from the split lip from her early punch and his eyes were that cold dark that even his black eyed look didn't have much over when it came to menacing. "You do your worst but that picket fence, blood for Sunday brunch, Super Bowl parties with dead guests by half time scenario you got going in your head….Never. Happening. You'll be in Purgatory running for your life long before you pick out blood splattered dinnerware for the ole homestead. That I promise you."

"Big bad Dean Winchester, finally making threats. Now that's how I saw this playing out. I'll tell Sam you went down like you lived: like a big frigging hero." Then she showed her fangs, was about to dive in for the feast….when a sound from the ground level above them brought her up short, had her and her hostage looking to the ceiling.

When the voices filtered down to them, they weren't Sam or Dom's but unfamiliar voices, young teenage voices. A moment later, there was the rhythmic bounce of a ball on the floor above. Kids congregating there to play some game…basketball, Dean surmised, remembered seeing the strange sight of the basketball net on one of the warehouse walls.

Dean's blood ran cold at the sudden recognition that it wasn't just his life in jeopardy, that some kids had unknowingly stepped into the drama unfolding twelve feet under them. Eyes shooting to Michele's, Dean implored, "They aren't part of this. Tell me you have enough human decency left in your soul to not hurt them!"

Pulling back from Dean, Michele smirked, "It's your fault, really. I didn't expect to work up such an appetite taking you down." Then her features darkened into a predatory expression. "I'm famished."

Even as Dean thought about screaming "Run!" or "Fire! Get out!" at the ceiling in some vain hope to get the kids to hightail it from the warehouse, the kids above turned on music and it saturated the air.

 ** _"Just one more moment, that's all that's needed,_**  
 ** _Like wounded soldiers in need of healing_**  
 ** _Time to be honest, this time I'm pleading,_**  
 ** _Please don't dwell on it, 'cause I didn't mean it"_**

"They're friggin' kids , Michele!" Dean screamed at the ex-hunter but she purred back, "And their blood will be ssssoooo tasty. It's the best …if you can get it. Be right back…" then she winked at him and started up the stairs.

Gritting his teeth against the scream that wanted to tear from his throat, Dean tried to push himself off the ground, had a vain spring of hope that Michele's shifting of the rebar would allow him to get free, that he could use his own blood and guts to grease the steel. Even under the crescendo of agony, the whiting out his vision, he still recognized that he wasn't gaining even an inch off the ground.

Sagging back against the ground, raggedly drawing in breath, his vision nearly closing in on him, he strained to hear what was going on above him, but at that moment, all he could hear was the song's continuing lyrics.

 ** _"I was blindfolded, but now I'm seeing,_**  
 ** _My mind was closing, now I'm believing_**  
 ** _I finally know just what it means to let someone in,_**  
 ** _To see the side of me that no one does, or ever will_**  
 ** _So if you're ever lost and find yourself all alone,_**  
 ** _I'd search forever just to bring you home,_**  
 ** _Here and now, this I vow"_**

Whatever the chorus was, Dean didn't hear it, not above the shouting, the pounding of running footsteps, the thud of bodies hitting the floor…and not getting back up again. Dean gave a shout of rage and frustration, knew those kids were dead and it was partly his fault.

He almost startled when Michele called down the warehouse stairs in a voice like a good wifey telling hubby the dinner's almost ready. "Be back soon. I'll just going to do a little house cleaning. Don't get too lonely."

Dean covered his eyes with a trembling, bloody stained hand. What had he told Sam…that he was so tired of doing the wrong thing. And here he was again, doing the wrong thing, allowing the wrong people to get killed. He had gone to Tulsa on his own to "take the edge off the Mark," to kill something, something that wasn't his brother. Had purposely waited until Sam was out of the bunker before he hit the road, wanted to do it solo, to take all the kills himself, to revel in the violence, in the bloodletting. "I'm no better than her," he berated hoarsely to the empty basement. And he faced it all over again, that he needed to be stopped, to be put down, that, best scenario would be him dying down there, all alone and staying dead. Best for Sam, for Cas…for everybody really.

Trouble was…he didn't want to die. He didn't want to leave Sam. Didn't want to cash things in and for it to be over. To be sent to Hell or Purgatory or to just not exist. He still wanted to live…and Sam wanted him to live. He knew that now, had seen the deep hurt flash in his brother's eyes when he doubted that.

But Sam's hurt…it didn't whitewash Dean's own. Dean didn't think he would ever get Sam's words out of his head, remembered Sam's comeback when he had challenged his little brother about doing the same thing to save him, taking any and all risks to see that his brother stayed alive.

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"If this situation was reversed and I was dying, you'd do the same thing." Dean had been so certain of what Sam's answer would be _. 'You'd betray me to save me, Sam. Would get an angel …or someone in Crowley or Ruby's demongraphic to save my life, like you had tried to do before when I got dragged to hell.'_

But Sam's answer hadn't been any of that. "No, Dean. I wouldn't. Same circumstances…I wouldn't."

And Dean wanted to call Sam a liar but he couldn't, Sam's earnest expression wouldn't let him. Said more than Sam's denial ever could. And after that, there had been nothing left to say, that Dean could say, Sam had said more than Dean had ever needed to hear.

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Now, nearly a year later, Dean had yet to repair the part of his heart that had shattered at his brother's denial of their brotherhood, of the love between them that Dean hadn't thought could be snatched away by his actions born out of that same love. It was why he snapped at Sam when he got all drama queen about the very real possibility of the Mark coming out on top, made some declaration about how he couldn't lose him.

Dean couldn't stand there and let his brother lie to his face. Refused to fall for the caring brother façade Sam only adopted to feel better about himself. Course Sam had denied it…said he didn't mean it: His hurtful words, his declaration to not save him.

' _Was that the truth or was what Sam said a year ago the truth?_ ' Suddenly Dean didn't know what to believe, didn't want to be weak and just pick the scenario he _wanted_ his brother to feel. ' _Course, if you can't get out of here before Twilight fang girl comes back, it won't matter_ ,' he groused at himself, wishing his phone battery hadn't up and died on him. A battery he just charged last night….in plain sight of Dom. ' _Who probably ripped out the battery and sent me on my merry way today with no possible cell service.'_

Yeah, their trap was air tight and he strolled into it, friggin' whistling. Sure, he and Sam had been game to help Michele and Dom take down some Vetalas, because _everyone_ (except Sam) knew that Vetalas traveled in pairs, could easily take down even an experienced pair of hunters. And sure, he'd agreed to hook up (not literally, darn it) with Michele to scout out the scene where a body had been found while Sam and Dom narrowed down the search with his brother's trusty laptop back at the motel. Nothing out of the ordinary, smart planning even, not much risk…unless he did what Sam told him not to before he left the motel ("Dean, don't hit on Michele because I so don't want to have to watch Dom kick in your teeth").

But that had all gone out of the window two minutes into meeting up with Michele in the basement of the warehouse. At first it was just his gut screaming at him 'danger,danger,danger' and the weird way Michele didn't approach him when he came down the stairs, instead paced the dark end of the floor. And then, when she crossed the room, there was something in the way she moved, something changed from before, something predatory.

And he had been a hunter long enough, had been fooled too often to not trust his instincts so he had started to reach for the gun at his waist but she was quicker, had her .45 Colt aimed at his head, cocked. He had tried placating, "Hey, whoa. Good guy, hunter, same side, ok. I don't know what's got you freaked but we're not after a shapeshifter or a ….."

There she had cut him off. Incensed, she shouted, "You killed them all!" stepping closer to Dean, her gun nearly pressed against his breastbone.

For a long moment, Dean didn't have a comeback. He had killed so many people…so many things lately, he didn't know where to even begin with the guessing. "Ok, maybe I did," he lowly countered, could see by her raised eyebrows that she hadn't expected the near confession.

She gave a bitter snort. "You stupid SOB, you don't even know who I'm talking about, do you?!"

She had him there. "Aahhhhh…nope." Better to go with the truth before he dug himself into a grave he maybe didn't deserve in this instance.

Michele shook her head, sending her long hair twirling. "Well, then let me show you." With something akin to pride, she bared her vampire teeth, let her hunger for blood show in her eyes, in the heady way she inhaled his scent.

"Oh crap," Dean muttered, part of him upset that one of their hunter numbers had been turned and another part of him pretty certain now who he had wasted that pissed her off. "Let me guess, you're new frenemies had a place in Tulsa." He should have predicted that his running off to do that vamp hunt without Sam would have far reaching consequences, first there was Sam getting pissy and not wanting him to join him on the suicide house hunt and now there was this new development.

After that, there hadn't much talking, just Michele ready to go all-you-can-eat-buffet on him, him hoping to knock a few of her new teeth loose as he slammed his gun barrel across her face. That had gotten him out of her clutches for like…ten seconds. Then she was on him, decided that he needed to take a flying leap. A leap that had ended with him skewered and helplessly immobile. That pretty much got them to where their story picked up now.

"Least she coulda done is turn the friggin' music down!" Dean grumbled as the walls seemed to shake under the assault of the beat of the song.

 _ **'Please don't dwell on it, 'cause I didn't mean it**_  
 _ **I can't believe I said I'd lay our love on the ground,**_  
 _ **But it doesn't matter 'cause I made it up, forgive me now**_  
 _ **Everyday I spend away, my soul's inside out,**_  
 _ **Gotta be some way that I can make it up to you now, somehow'**_

Hearing the lyrics, Dean groaned. "And it has to be some moody song like Sam would download." His thoughts drawn to his brother again, but not on the words said between them a year ago or two weeks ago but the words they didn't say, that he didn't say. ' _Like sorry for turning into a demon and almost taking your head off with a hammer, sorry for making you get beat up by Cole and lead Lester to a crossroad deal trying to defend my actions, right my wrongs._ ' That what he had said in that bunker dungeon when he was all black eyes, he hadn't meant, at all. That Sam hadn't been at fault for their mother's death, their father's death, that Sam hadn't sucked the life out of his life…Sam had instead made his life worth living, every day, every time he smiled at one of his jokes, every time he saved his life on a hunt, every time he forgave him, every time he came back to him, every time he got in the Impala at his side.

"Boy, I blew it, Sam. I had all the chances in the world to tell you all that and instead I bellyached about the past, seemed to forget all you've done for me now, how you saved me, darkened your own soul to save mine. Last year I actually had the right idea, leaving, keeping you away from me, making sure you didn't suffer, any more than you already had, for my piss poor decisions, decisions that continued and still continue to get people dead." Like those kids upstairs, the ones Michele was off sucking dry of blood and then going to bury deep in the nearby forest.

' _Then she'll come back and finish me off…well, mortal me. Demon me, he'll come out to play then_.' Had only a sliver of optimism that he needed the First Blade to be resurrected, didn't quite trust his luck that far. Not when he had glimpsed the black overtaking his green eyes in the mirror on far too many occasions to just be his imagination. ' _No, it'll be like throwing a switch, human Dean will go adios and demon Dean will take back center stage.'_ His analogy made him cringe because, seriously, karaoke?! That was demon him's best outlet for his badness?! Come on! That was just a hair better than miming.

Again Dean tried to shift off the ground, to get the rebar to play nice and let him go. But it was a study of futility. Trying to lever himself off the bar just ended up with him slumping over, nearly blacking out. (No pun intended.) It was hopeless.

And the friggin' song must have gotten knocked onto repeat because it was going on and on.

 _ **'So if you're ever lost and find yourself all alone,**_  
 _ **I'd search forever just to bring you home,**_  
 _ **Here and now, this I vow**_  
 _ **You know I'd always come for you'**_

Those words struck a chord in Dean, reminded him of Sam, of his brother's diehard loyalty and tenacity to save him. Dean felt his eyes sting with tears he wouldn't shed. It was wrong that the next part of the song hit him even harder.

 _ **No matter what gets in my way**_  
 _ **As long as there's still life in me**_  
 _ **No matter what, remember**_  
 _ **You know I'd always come for you**_

 _ **And I'd fight for you,**_  
 _ **I'd lie, it's true**_  
 _ **Give my life for you,**_  
 _ **You know I'd always come for you**_

And Dean knew Sam would come for him if he knew he was in danger, if he knew what Michele was. That, no matter what Sam had said before, he would always strive to save him. Sam was too good to do otherwise. ' _Loves you too much to lose you, you idiot_ ,' a voice said in his head that sounded a lot like Sam's. And when the lyrics rolled around again, he knew Sam could have written them…had said as much.

 _ **'Please don't dwell on it, 'cause I didn't mean it**_  
 _ **I can't believe I said I'd lay our love on the ground,**_  
 _ **But it doesn't matter 'cause I made it up, forgive me now**_  
 _ **Everyday I spend away, my soul's inside out,**_  
 _ **Gotta be some way that I can make it up to you now, somehow.'*****_

And his conversation with Sam played again in Dean's head.

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"I can't lose you!" Sam had emphatically declared only for Dean to cockily challenge, "Really? You change your mind on that 'cause that's not what you said last time."

Hurt overtook Sam's features. "You know I didn't mean it!"

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Sam. Didn't. Mean. It.

He never had. His brother would always come for him. Same circumstances…different circumstances..it didn't matter. Sam loved him and didn't want him gone….or off being a demon.

' _Yeah, so what are you doing about that, huh? Check out or fight until Sam comes for you, rescues your stupid behind?'_ It was time to put up or shut up. He had told Sam and Charlie that he would fight as long as he could, that couldn't just mean fighting the Mark's influence, had to mean that he'd cling to this life, do all he could to not die.

And right then and there that added up to not letting some hunter-turned-vampire chick rip his throat out. That meant putting up the fight of his life when she came for him, to hold her off until the inevitable happened: Sam came storming in to save him like the big friggin' hero that he was.

But Dean's resolve faltered when he heard the creak of a door open and footsteps overhead, felt it crumble when Michele announced her return as she came down the stairs with a "Funny thing is, Dom was always afraid that you and I would hook up…" then she was on the basement level, was walking toward him when she continued, "guess that's why he jumped at the chance to help me kill you."

Dean offered up one of his cocky half smiles. "I'd be a lair if I said the thought of you and I never crossed my mind. But now…I don't really _like_ biters."

"Oh baby, that's before you've experienced my bite," she drawled with a twisted mix of sultry and deadly.

Dean tried not to show fear as she straddled him, settled on his lap like she was his summer crush. He grabbed her wrists to halt her attempt to touch him, seemingly to run her hands though his hair. "Maybe I'm saying it too nice. Save your scanky love for Dom..he apparently has no standards."

Instead of anger, Michele gave a low chuckle of amusement. "Dean, honey, scanky love is the only love you've ever been able to generate." Ripping her wrists from his grip, she caught his chin in her left hand, forced his head up so their eyes met. "Because real love…you destroy that like the jealous jerk you are. That's why you savor killing, ripping apart families and turning love into ash."

"Families?!" Dean was now the one giving a dark chuckle. "You mean those vamps back in Tulsa." His eyes darkened as he bit out, "Bet your sister Rosie is rolling in her grave right now, knowing that you've switched up getting revenge for her to bemoaning some dicks with fangs that turned you into their blood junkie and told you same bed time story about how they'll care for you." He let his merciless smile emerge. "Get the memo: your new "family"….they won't be throwing you b-day parties cause I ganked them. With prejudice. And, I have to tell you, they went down easy. Makes me wonder if you and Dom even tried to take them down or did you just knock on their nest door and ask if they had half a cup of blood you could have for a recipe."

For that insinuation, he got a right cross to the jaw. "Dom and I went in there to kill them and things went wrong!"

"What, Dom didn't get turned too? I gotta say, he'd make an ugly vamp. He's already got that high forehead and those little eyes." She didn't allow him to finish, delivered a punch to his gut that jarred the rebar.

Slumping forward, gasping for breath amid his agony, Dean couldn't even care that he was leaning against Michele, that his forehead was resting on her collarbone.

"Poor Dean, that hurt?" she taunted, pulling Dean more firmly against her as she wrapped her hand around the base of his neck and ran her fingers through his hair. Whispered by his ear, "Now I'm a little torn between killing you and turning you. Turn you..turn Dom…then all three of us can go after Sam, turn him..or kill him."

Fear sent adrenaline through Dean, gave him the strength to roughly shove Michele away before he slumped back against the wall. "Sam's not a part of this. He wasn't even there when I took out your buddies. I did it alone!"

"Oh, I know. Your scent was all over their bodies and Sam's wasn't. But you don't seem to be grasping how much it hurts to lose your family, the ones you know you belong with forever. If I kill Sam, I think it'll be clear to you."

And Dean knew that clarity already, had lost Sam before, had nearly lost him just last year to the trails. He sure wasn't going to let Michele go after his brother. Made a vow right then and there that she wasn't walking out of the warehouse, wasn't getting her fangs into Sam, and it didn't matter if keeping that vow cost him his life and soul. His brother was worth losing everything. Even his soul to the Mark.

"You really think some vampire bond can ever top my loyalty to my brother?!" He smugly challenged, ready and willing to help Michele make her mind up on whether to kill him and end this revenge trip or turn him and go after Sam. "Seemed to me your loyalty to Dom didn't go by the wayside just because you tapped out of the human race. And, let me tell you, you like Dom about 10…ok 20 percent as much as I like my brother. So my first order of business as a vamp won't be to kiss your ring…it'll be to protect my brother by ripping your head off your shoulders." His eyes drilled into her surprised gaze, "So go ahead, turn me. I dare you."

Shaking off the chill of Dean's prophetic statement, Michele adopted a confident smirk. "Got it. Better to kill you now _then_ I'll kill Sam." Tried to not let the malicious glint in Dean's gaze at her threat rattle her.

"You kill me, I might just let that go. But you go after Sam…that I'll take personally," Dean drawled, hoped the rumors of his propensity of coming back from the dead kept her from going after Sam. Had no real confidence that demon him would go the protective route, would even care if Michele followed through with her threat and killed Sam after killing him.

"Consider this my way of taking things personal," she snarled, her vampire teeth dropping down into place as she grabbed Dean's chin and twisted his face to the left to give her good access to the veins in his jugular pulsating with life sustaining blood.

Bracing himself for the pain of fangs sinking into his throat, Dean startled at the ringing of Michele's cell phone. He drew in a shaking breath of uncertainty as the moment stretched and teeth still didn't pierce his flesh.

With a curse, Michele shoved herself to her feet, paced back from Dean and took the phone call. "Dom, babe, your timing's messed up, as usual."

But it wasn't Dom's voice that filtered through the cell phone's speakers.

"That better mean that my brother's alive or else I'll slit Dom's throat right here and now," Sam acidly threatened.

For the first time, Michele understood that the affable Sam Winchester that she was so used to interacting with was a façade, that the real Sam Winchester was on the phone with her now, would have no qualms about killing Dom, would do murder and a lot more for the sake of his brother. That Dean might have unknowingly killed her nest but Sam would make it his life's work to track her down and kill her and everyone she loved. That whatever game of revenge she had thought she was playing at had now been turned into a fight for survival.

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TBC

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***The song in this chapter "I'd Come for You" belongs to Nickelback. I've been thinking how it so fits the season so well and then Sam went and said "I didn't mean it" and I just couldn't pass up that opportunity to put this song into a story. Cheesy I know but I'm cheesy so it fits my style. And if you hate the story, just go listen to the song and my mission will be accomplished.

Thanks for reading! And reviews will inspire me to get the next chapter done!

Happy Mother's Day!

And to all the rest of my readers…have a great day!

Cheryl W.


	2. Chapter 2: Trading Up

Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, Nickelback or Scott Stapp's songs, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: Ok, a little backtracking here at the start so we get Sam POV, then we'll get caught up to where last chapter ended. I just couldn't figure out how to break down the chapter so it turned out a little longer than the first one. And I'm so flattered by the slew of reviews on the first chapter! I had given myself the pep speech before posting about not getting discouraged if hardly anyone reviewed and then I was blessed with 26 reviews! Thanks so much for all your kind words of support for this story! And I loved getting all the favorite and following notifications too!

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Chapter Two: Trading Up

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' _ **Even when you feel so low like you might let go**_

 _ **I will be the first hand reaching out**_

 _ **I will be the last one giving up on you"**_

It wasn't logical and Dean would call him a girl for it but it was hard for Sam to watch Dean walk out the door without him these days. And yeah, some of that apprehension was about the Mark's influence on his brother… but not all of it. There were still times when Sam woke up in a cold sweat, memories washing over him of Dean dying in his arms, the weight of his brother's lifeless body as he carried him into the bunker, the terror of seeing Dean's eyes soullessly black and hearing his brother say words he _never_ would utter. Not to him. Never to him.

Dean might have thought he had exaggerated, errored on the side of drama queen antics, but Sam knew how true his "I can't live through that again" declaration to Dean had been. Because he couldn't do it again, any of it, Dean dying…or Dean turning into a demon. And it was his job to make sure that didn't happen, that he didn't fail Dean again, push him away …hurt Dean so badly that he became reckless. Ok, _more_ reckless than he already was.

But even with that vow humming through his soul, Sam wasn't egotistical or delusional enough to think Dean would always be OK if he were with him, not with the life, the work they did. _'But I need to be with him to at least have the_ _chance_ _to try and save him.'_ Not like last time. ' _Just get there in time to see Metatron sink an angel sword in Dean's chest, helpless to do anything else other than watch the light fade in my brother's eyes.'_

Shaking those dark memories from his head, Sam realized that Dom's voice had turned insistent, which meant the fellow hunter had been expecting a response from him for a while now. "What?" was Sam's articulate comeback.

Dom, sporting a close cropped buzz cut, tattoos on his forearm and boasting a round chest Sam thought might be more muscle than flab, gave Sam a smirk. "Glad my life isn't in your hands today," his words unknowingly praying on Sam's inner doubt of his abilities to keep Dean safe. Keep anyone safe these days. Dom's head tilted as if in contemplation, a strange look for a guy who looked more beach bum than Aristotle. "Where you at, Sam? 'Cause it sure isn't on this research."

"Ah, yeah, sorry," Sam offered with a smile Dean would have known was as fake as their FBI badges. "You find something?" trying to get his head back into the game, into tracking down the Vetalas who were making their way across Idaho's southern counties.

Dom tapped his laptop screen. "Just a month old police report tied into some obits I found. Sounds like vics of our Vetalas pair: unidentifiable venom in their system, blood gone, bodies dumped. More proof that our Vetalas have been eating their way down Idaho's potato country."

"And we're just following their sloppy trail," Sam deduced with a disheartened sigh as he ran his hand down his face, had started to hate this particular job…the second Dean walked out the door without him. "So the crime scene Michele and Dean are at, did the coroner determine time of death on the three bodies found there? Maybe we're close to catching up with them."

Dom ruffled through his handwritten pages scattered across his bed before he apparently found the right one. "I interviewed the coroner and the time of death for them was…..oldest was a month ago and earliest was….ah, crap, still two weeks ago." Crumbling the paper in his hand in frustration, he tossed it to the floor. "We're two weeks behind them. All we can hope is that Michele and Dean find us a lead from the scene."

To Sam, that was his opening to call Dean for an update. He had been trying to think of a reason to reach out to Dean, to settle the nagging anxiousness blooming in his chest, to hear his brother's voice and quiet the voices in his own head whispering dire pessimistic outcomes for the day. But neither his anxiety or the voices in his head died down when his call to Dean didn't go through. He wasn't even granted a recorded sample of his brother's voice, just got that generic 'out of service area' phone company recording.

"Can't get through?" Dom posed, his lips turned up into a goading smirk that Sam wanted to beat off the other man's face. "Yeah, Michele said the cell reception was spotty out there. We always seemed to lose connection the closer she got to the crime scene. So we're on our own." Then he refocused on his laptop like Sam no longer existed in the room.

Dom's explanation, it didn't reassure Sam like it should have. Maybe because Dom was so quick to offer up that information, didn't let him squirm and freak out with worry. Didn't bust Sam's chops about being ' _scaredy without big bro there to hold his hand'_ like he mocked the last hunt they teamed up for. And, ok, maybe Dom had just decided not to be a jerk 100% of the time…except Sam knew guys like Dom and being a jerk was what they truly excelled at. Truth be told, _Michele_ was the real hunter in the duo, was the only reason Dom hadn't been some monster's BBQ picnic dinner. His brawn notwithstanding, his lack of hunter skills, more times than not, always got him assigned research duty.

' _Right along with me_.' And that rankled Sam a bit, getting benched with Dom while Dean got to go on a road trip, pick up the Vetalas trail in person. Without him. Unconsciously, Sam rubbed his neck where the Vetalas he had tangled with years ago had sunk her teeth into him for a mid-day snack, sending venom coursing through his blood stream. Knew he was lucky that he had only taken two hits of venom…unlike the corpses the Vetalas had sloppily discarded around the work shop space.

Sam stiffened in his chair. ' _Multiple bites…that's a Vetala's style. To get at least three hits of blood maybe four from each victim. To savor their meal…keep them around for days.'_ Hands flying across the laptop keys, Sam pulled up the pictures Dom or Michele had taken of the latest victim at the morgue, zoomed in on the shots of the necks…that showed only a single but messy, bite mark. With a few more keystrokes, he brought up the autopsy from the earlier vics in the county. Found the same thing: single bite mark site. ' _Not like a Vetala attack._ ' And it was on the tip of Sam's tongue to tell Dom his discovery but he chose to stay silent instead. To be silent and to distrust.

Distrust because his gut was telling him he was missing something, because Michele and Dom should have realized this wasn't a Vetala's MO as quickly as he did, especially since Michele had made it her life's ambition to track down all Vetalas and end them. Distrust because there was only one person in the world Sam trusted and that person happened to share DNA with him. Even with the Mark on Dean, Sam trusted his brother's good heart, had had faith that, if he gave Dean that sanctified blood and helped him in his fight to be himself again, Dean's heart would do the rest, would do, not what was best for Dean, but what was best for Sam. After all, that was what Dean had ingrained his heart to do all these years: to save Sam.

So since Dom wasn't his brother and the guy was acting almost civic, which was totally out of character for him, Sam let his conclusions go unsaid while his suspicions grew. Forced himself to wait twenty minutes before he suggested Dom hit the grocery store across the street for food for lunch, said it disinterestedly, his head down, his eyes glued to his laptop screen like he was on a hot trail of a lead instead of stewing in his own boiling trepidation.

Surging from the chair nearly the second Dom shut the door behind him, Sam crossed over to Dom's bag and began searching it, for what, he didn't know, did the same for Michele's and came up with the same nothing. Pulling the curtain back from the window, he saw Dom enter the grocery store and was instantly out the door to Dom's car, popping the trunk. Easily finding the opening to their weapon's stash, Sam rummaged through their arsenal, came up with nothing noteworthy. Closing the trunk, he crossed to the driver's side door and sank into the seat, dug through the glove compartment, under the seats, between the seats, all with nothing sparking his interest. Stepping from the front seat he slid into the passengers' seat behind it, did the same meticulous search. Almost didn't see the importance of the receipt he found jammed under the front passenger's seat. Was about to shove it back under the seat when one word caught his notice: Tulsa.

And from that point, the receipt became a mecca of clues that made Sam's breath catch. Gas station receipt for Tulsa, Oklahoma…on the same exact date Dean wiped out that vampire nest solo. That the station's address was just down the road from the nest and the time on the receipt was a few hours after Dean cleaned house would have been an acceptable coincidence for a pair of hunters, if Dom hadn't told him he and Michele had been on this Vetala hunt for a solid month there in Idaho. Dom had lied to him. And Sam was certain that it wasn't the first one.

Though he was fighting hard to not jump to far flung conclusions, the fact that Dean wasn't answering his phone, that it had been Dom's idea Dean go meet up with Michele, when every other time Dom had acted like a jealous husband and made a big stink if he couldn't stick close to Michele if Dean was in her near vicinity, that there Vetala hunt was actually….. "Oh crap," Sam muttered aloud as the pieces fell into place. Because their Vetala hunt was actually a vampire hunt.

All of a sudden, Michele's absence made sick sense. If they were truly after a Vetala, the rule was to hunt by pairs and not split up and yet, Michele and Dom weren't together when he and Dean arrived. Michele was supposedly at the crime scene…by herself. Wanted _Dean_ to join her…not Dom.

Receipt in hand, he slipped out of the car, shut the door and stalked for the motel room. Entering he headed to the small refrigerator, yanked the door open and looked in the freezer compartment, knew his suspicions weren't wrong when there wasn't a single carton of ice cream there. Ice cream was Michele's addiction, she had traded up heroin for it five years ago when she and Dom hooked up and had taken up hunting. She didn't make it through a hunt…a _day_ without a bowl of it, Sam had seen that for himself. And now there was none…in a room with Michele's bag. ' _Like she switched up one addiction for another…Fudge Ripple for …blood_.'

Growling out a vicious curse of fear and self –loathing for not figuring this out sooner, Sam quickly crossed the room to his bag. But it took less than two seconds for him to determine his gun wasn't in the bag's depths like it had been last night. And neither was his machete and his favorite knife, leaving him weaponless. Punching the wall in fury, he fought the urge to storm into the grocery story, track Dom down and beat him to a pulp until he told him where his brother was because, of yeah, he didn't have the address that Dom sent Dean to. And it had been kind of weird, even at the time, Dom being so helpful and prepared, him handing Dean a folded map with the crime scene supposedly all marked on it. A map Sam hadn't seen, and the location wasn't marked on any of the maps Dom had pasted up on the motel room walls.

It was so clear now what all this had been from the very start: a trap for Dean. Pay back for killing that nest. For Dean unknowingly killing the vampire nest that apparently had turned Michele. Good old fashioned revenge and he never saw it coming, sent out a pray that Dean had because if he lost his brother again, to death or the Mark's hold, he would teach Dom and Michele the true meaning of insufferable pain.

" **If you leave, tell me where you'd go?**

 **Would you lock yourself inside a place,**

 **so no one had the chance to face you on your own "**

When Dom reentered the motel room, Sam was in the same position he was when he left: at the table, hunched over his laptop like it had answers. Dropping the grocery bag on the small counter space by the sink, he announced, "Lunch ain't served. Get it yourself."

Not looking up from his concentration on the computer screen, Sam replied, "Just need a drink, that's all."

With a sigh, Dom dug in the bag, came out with a soda bottle and was about to toss it to Sam when he realized Winchester still had his nose tucked in his computer. Taking three steps forward, Dom slammed the bottle down on the table beside Sam's laptop and in that instant, Sam made his move.

Even as he surged to his feet, Sam latched onto Dom's wrist, twisted the hunter's arm behind his back and used his other hand to slam Dom's face into the Formica tabletop with enough force to break the other man's nose. To Dom's credit, he choked down his cry of pain and kicked out, savagely sending his steel enforced boot heel into Sam's knee.

Sam's leg crumbled at the abuse, giving Dom the opening to pull his knife from its sheath in his waist and blindly make a right hand swipe behind him, hoping to score a cut across Sam's torso. Defensively, Sam pushed himself away from Dom before the knife could find its mark and quickly hobbled back five steps. He watched as Dom turned to face him, never lost sight of the knife the fellow hunter wielded. Knew that now was the best time to get answers ..when Dom thought he was in control, had good odds that he could win this fight.

"There never was any Vetalas, was there? Vampires dropped the bodies here in Idaho," Sam said as he shuffled to the right as Dom moved to the left, looking for an opening to attack.

Dom gave Sam his condescending smirk that Sam had always hated. "The way you Winchesters brag yourselves up, you'd think you wrote the book on monster hunting…and yet you and your brainless brother couldn't figure out the distinction between a Vetala and a Vampire hunt."

Sam's jaw clenched at Dom's insult because it was partially true, he hadn't figured this out as soon as he should have. Dom saw the moment of self-chastisement as a green light to lunge forward, intent on sticking the knife in Sam's gut. But Sam easily knocked Dom's arm away, grabbed hold of Dom's shirt and pulled the man toward him, right into a head butt followed by a backhanded slap that sent Dom tumbling to the floor.

Sam didn't follow up his advantage, let Dom scamper away and regain his feet, needed Dom still in a talking mood…not unconscious or dead. Now it was Sam who offered Dom a condescending smile, "Aaaww. Poor Dom. Michele's not here to fight your battles for you, you want to beg for mercy awhile or hold out another few minutes?"

With a roar of rage, Dom tackled Sam and Sam allowed it, felt the breath knocked out of him when he impacted with the floor, Dom's not inconsiderable weight on top of him. Then he was latched onto Dom's right wrist, held back the knife point from plunging into his eye. "Michele got turned, didn't she? By the nest that Dean took out in Tulsa."

"You got the brains in your family," Dom chuckled back not exactly meaning it as a compliment for Sam but another slam against Dean. Went to punch Sam across the cheek to distract him but Sam blocked the blow with his forearm, then sent his elbow careening into Dom's temple, toppling the man off him.

Climbing to his feet before Dom could, Sam kicked the hunter's right hand, dislodging the knife from Dom's hold and sending it skittering across the floor to settle under the night stand, out of both of their reaches. Then Dom was up, fists raised like he had any chance whatsoever of delivering a knockout blow to Sam. But Sam did his part in encouraging Dom's fantasy, backed away like he feared the man's boxing skills.

"And instead of taking out the nest that turned Michele…you what? Let her play house with them?!" Sam bitingly prodded. He gave a dark humorless chuckle, "I always told Dean that Michele wore the pants in your relationship, that you couldn't think for yourself. That you'd cross any line if she asked you too. Were too weak to make it without her." And part of Sam understood the irony of the situation, that his psychological take on Dom…it fit him to a T too. That for Dean, he would …he had crossed many a line and would continue to do so to keep Dean human and with him. That, like he had told Charlie, he couldn't do this job that he had finally accepted that he loved, wouldn't _want_ to do it anymore, if Dean wasn't at his side.

Districted by his sharp spike of worry for his brother, Sam almost didn't react in time to Dom's enraged charge. Almost. He caught Dom under the chin with his infamous uppercut that had the reputation of knocking even Dean on his can. It didn't disappoint this time either, took Dom off his feet and down onto the carpeted floor. And Sam took advantage of Dom's weakness this time, was done playing weak in a ploy to gain answers. Leaning over Dom, he easily knocked away the other man's attempted right cross and delivered one of his own, followed by yet another and another until Dom's face was bloody and his eyes were dropping shut. It took just one more punch to send Dom into oblivion.

" **Cuz when we fall down, we can stay down**

 **But the freedom that we wanna find,**

 **is only found when we're off the ground."**

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When Dom came to, he found his head was pounding like a mother, his arms were tied behind him, he was bound to the motel chair and Sam Winchester was leaning against the countertop, his own knife in Winchester's hand and his cell phone in Sam's other hand.

"Good, you're awake. Bet Michele will take your call. You better _pray_ she hasn't hurt my brother," Sam directed at him with a lethalness that Dom had never witnessed in the younger Winchester before. And that it seemed to somehow top Dean's ability to put shivers down Dom's spine wasn't a comforting revelation.

Then Sam held the phone to his ear, opening the conversation with Michele with a chilling "That better mean that my brother's alive or else I'll slit Dom's throat right here and now," and the look Sam leveled at Dom gave the other hunter little hope that it was a baseless threat.

Sam felt his insides tightened at the silence that came through the phone lines at his threat. His fears took hold, tried to convince him that Michele was speechless because Dean was already dead, that she didn't have a living breathing prisoner to offer up in exchange for Dom. He only inhaled again when Michele finally made a reply.

"He's alive but I was right in the middle of changing that status when you called," Michele revealed, a playful ring to her not so veiled threat. But Dean saw what Sam couldn't, the contradiction between Michele's brave words and her worried expression. Dean couldn't hold back a proud, smug smile. Sam was coming for him, just like he knew he would and Michele's days were numbered.

Hand tightening its grip on the phone, Sam dangerously vowed, "You hurt him and Dom's dead before I hang up the phone."

Straightening her shoulders, Michele let her new vampiric strength and ego smother her fear of Sam Winchester. "Oops. Too late on that point," she merrily drawled, smiled at Sam's angry roar that filtered out of the cell phone speakers.

"If I don't hear Dean's voice in the next five seconds, you're gonna hear Dom choking on his own blood." His ears already straining to hear his brother's voice in the background of the call, some proof that Michele hadn't lied, that Dean wasn't already dead by her hands.

"You want proof of life…fine," Michele too amicably agreed right before she suddenly was bending over Dean, reached down and gave the protruding rebar in Dean's side a good yank to the right again. Dean tried to stifle his cry of agony but knew he did a piss poor job, especially when he heard Sam's anxious shout of his name come through the cellphone connection.

"Dean!" tore from Sam's throat without his permission, destroying his plan to be stoic. He wanted to reach through the phone and behead Michele with his bare hands when she rejoined their conversation with a trilling laugh.

"And Dean was trying so hard to be the macho man for me. Guess you bring down all his barriers, Sam," Michele taunted, stepping back from Dean, liked seeing the so strong Winchester again slumping forward, trying to breathe through his agony. Got a thrill out of knowing she now had the power to bring both Winchesters to their knees.

Gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached, Sam snarled, "Dean took your new family away from you and I'll gladly take away your old one." Forcing himself to calm down, to outthink Michele, he dropped the menace from his voice, adopted a tone of cold certainty. "From personal experience, I know vampires don't take being alone well, get all moody and needy. End up getting sloppy, which makes them easy targets for even piss poor hunters like Dom to track down and take out. And an ex-hunter turned vampire…I can't say getting adopted into a new nest looks hopeful for you."

"Wow, sounds like you're really concerned for my future. That's so sweet, Sam. Maybe I just turn Dean, make him my new family," Michele volleyed back to cover her misgivings on her future, didn't dare look to Dean because he knew she had had her chance to turn him and he had scared her into vetoing the idea.

Dean was torn between shouting so Sam could hear him or keeping quiet, letting Sam handle things any way he saw fit without him distracting him. And it struck him then, how the roles were reversed now. He was the one in the hot seat and Sam held his life in his hands. ' _Like I did when Cole had Sam, threatened to slit his throat._ ' A tsunami of shame washed over Dean at the memory of his conversation with Cole, how he had reacted when Cole said he had Sam, would kill him if Dean didn't show up.

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" _There's no trade, no meet up, no nothing except the 100% guaranty that somewhere down the road I will find you and I will kill you."_

" _That will be cold comfort to your dead brother," Cole had come back with but the threat meant very little to Dean._

" _I told him to let me go so whatever jam he's in now, that's his problem. 'cause Sam knows me and if there's one thing I am, I am a man of my word"_

" _I'll pass that onto him as I'm slitting his throat."_

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And Dean. Had. Hung. Up. The. Phone.

Ended the call knowing Cole's intentions, that Sam's life would be taken if he didn't come for him, meet up with Cole…and he hadn't. Come for Sam. But Sam was going to come for him, was going to come for him even knowing that he was walking into a trap, that it could cost him his life. That Dean wasn't going to die… well, stay dead, no matter what Michele did, didn't factor into Sam's thoughts, only saving Dean from death, from becoming again a Knight of Hell, mattered to his little brother.

And Dean didn't want Sam walking into the lion's den for him, of reenacting the scenes in the Bunker: him with a hammer in his hand, his brother's skull his 'x-marks the spot' and Sam…Sam dropping Ruby's knife he had poised at his throat for a fatal blow. His brother had been unwilling to kill him, as evil as he was, not even to save his own life.

So Dean couldn't trust Sam to safeguard his own life, not in this instance, not when his life was up for grabs. But he knew he couldn't stop Sam from coming, didn't honestly want to but wanted to at least give his brother some helpful information that could keep him alive. "Warehouse ten miles outside Goodling! We're in the basement and she just fed, Sam!" he shouted, hopefully loud enough for Sam to hear him from Michele's cellphone.

Michele backhanded him for his outburst but he smiled as he leaned his head back against the wall. He had given Sam fair warning about her strength and enough of their location. Sam could do wonders with just that.

Hearing Dean's voice instead of his brother's cry of pain helped to dissipate a large portion of Sam's fear, not to mention bolstered his fortified to get his brother back. Lowly, he hissed into the phone, "We are going to make an exchange, Dean for Dom, and they are both gonna be alive. And if you even mention turning Dean, I'll kill Dom right here and now and go after your little cousin, Melanie. She's still living in Oregon right, just a few hours and I can be knocking on your aunt's door," Sam heartlessly threatened.

In her rage, Michele's fangs dropped into place and she gave an inhuman growl that wasn't very settling for Dean's nerves. But she directed all her anger toward Sam. "Stay away from her, Sam! She's an innocent!"

"Then bring my brother back to me and she stays safe!" Sam growled, waited a few beats before he proposed, "We can meet in Jerome on Route 26…"

Realizing that Sam had her backed into a corner, Michele was willing to agree to the meet …and would rip Sam Winchester's throat out while Dean helplessly watched. And her vengeance would be nearly complete. She was playing with the idea of letting Dean stew in his grief awhile after that before she finished him off. But then Sam's words brought her back to the problem at hand and she interrupted. "You want your brother alive, we meet here in Goodling, in that warehouse, just where your brother told you we were."

"No, my terms, my location…" Sam protested.

"I move him…he dies, Sam," Michele dispassionately declared but she gave Dean an amused smile. "Your clumsy brother got himself impaled on some rebar. Here…a picture's worth a thousand words…" then she held the phone up and took a picture of Dean, sitting on the floor, his lips bloody from her beatings and a bloody stain spreading from his side around the protruding piece of rebar. Then she texted it to Dom's phone.

When the phone dinged, Sam knew he shouldn't open the picture, that it would give Michele an advantage over him but he couldn't not open it, had to see his brother. For the first time, he cursed the sharp clarity of the cell phone's pictures, with the quality of the pixels he could see the blood.. the rebar in his brother's side and Dean's pale complexion all too well.

"My advice to you is ….don't take your time, Sam. Or else he'll die before you get here to say your goodbyes and I won't get to rip his throat out. And that'll put us both in bad moods." Abruptly ending the call there, Michele hated that her hand shook a little when she slid the phone back into her pocket, hated it more that Dean didn't miss her display of fear.

"Hey, I'll be shaking in my boots too if I had Sam coming for me," Dean drawled with false commiseration. "Truth is, I've lost more fights with Sam than I've won…and if you tell him that, I'll kill you."

"Shut up!" Then Michele stumped up the stairs and Dean finally had the privacy to release the moan of agony he had been holding in and let his breathing go ragged instead of the even breaths he had performed in her presence. No use letting her know how far gone he was. Or Sam. Because Sam didn't need to worry more about him than he already was. Needed to concentrate on keeping himself alive and outsmarting Michele, which wasn't going to be easy considering her hunter knowledge, her personal knowledge of his and Sammy's tactics, her new strength and sense of smell, and her home court advantage. Sam could take it from him, Michele set a dang fine trap. _'Well, her and_ _Dom_ _. I hope Sam tears that SOB a new butthole for his part in this._ '

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Sam fought the urge to throw Dom's cellphone across the room, settled for slamming it on the table before he came to loom over Dom. Looking down at the bound hunter, he demanded darkly, "Where's this warehouse at, exact location."

"I'll tell you on the way," Dom bargained with a swaggering grin…that instantly drained off his face when Sam pressed the blade against his throat hard enough to draw blood and stifle Dom's freedom to draw in a breath.

"Tell me the location now and where my weapons are," Sam venomously countered, putting more pressure on the knife blade.

"I have to be alive for the trade!" Dom sputtered. "That's the deal you made."

Sam crouched down so his gaze impaled Dom's. "I don't give a _crap_ what I promised your whore vampire. It's up to me if you ever walk out of here. So where's the warehouse and my weapons?"

Though Dom had been betting on Michele to be the victor in today's showdown, part of him started to lose faith, not only in her new vampire invincibility but in her love for him. Especially since she hadn't agree to the trade him for Dean until Sam threatened, not just his life, but also her niece's. "Warehouse's on a dirt road west off of Route 46. Follow the signs for Gooding City of Rocks and you'll pass right by it. And your weapons are in the room next door." He gave a small jerk of his head to the right to indicate the motel room #12.

With that new information, Sam pulled the knife from Dom's throat, grabbed a dish rag off the table and tied it nice and tight around Dom's mouth so shouting for help wasn't possible. Then he hurriedly headed to the other room to get his weapons. He had a brother to save and little time to do it in.

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When the music in the warehouse abruptly ended with a crash overhead and the song's tempo was replaced by footfalls of pacing, Dean let that go on for twenty minutes, gave Sam time to get nearly there before he called out, hoping his voice reached up the stairs, "Someone seems nervous." The pacing stopped but when his taunt didn't garner Michele's reappearance, he upped the ante. "Don't know if we ever told you this but…there is a cure for vampirism. Well, if you abstain…which, by the number of bodies in the morgues in Idaho that you claimed Vetalas did in, you traded up ice cream for blood to cure that hunger you still have for heroin. Baby, I think this is one addiction you won't cure with a sweet tooth," he mockingly forecast.

And that did it, got her to come down the stairs, her eyes dark with the Latino spirit he had admired in her so many times before. "But hey, maybe this is the addiction to beat all addictions. No more ice cream, no more heroin cravings…no more guilt about standing your sister up to see that movie together because you wanted to hang out with some nose and eyebrow pierced guy, the same night Rosie never came home, got waylaid by a pair of Vetalas."

Again the claws of Michele's right hand dug into Dean's throat. "How do you know that?" she seethed.

It took effort to talk around her hold but Dean managed it. "I checked out your story about your sister. Checked out Dom's high school BFF's autopsy too. What can I say, Sam and I don't trust easily. Needed to know you were really hunters, what drove you to be hunters, if we should work with you or not. Seems we guessed wrong on that verdict."

Michele shook her head and released Dean. "We were the ones that were stupid to hunt with you. I've got my thing going on with Vetalas, yeah, but you…you hate them all. Leave massacres in your wake like a living breathing natural disaster. My nest…that was just another day for you. Wash off the blood and look for the next thing to kill. You talk about me turning on Dom….how many times have you turned on Sam, how long until you do it again? At least Dom knows I didn't want to be this, had my choice taken away. But you….you make the choices all on your own and it's Sam who pays the consequences. If he were smart, he would leave you here for me to suck dry."

Dean had gone still and even paler at her words, at how true they were, now more than ever before. His choices hurt Sam. His decision to make the crossroad deal for Sam's life, to let Gadreel possess Sam, to take on the Mark. All things he had consciously done and to heck with the consequences. And that was why he hadn't let Sam use the Book of the Damned to try and cure him. He understood, like Sam should, how unbearable the consequences could be when they sought to blindly save each other.

Holding Michele's gaze, Dean hoarsely agreed with her, "You're absolutely right. Sam should leave me here to get ganked by you, should do to me what I did to him when the roles were reversed. But he won't."

As if to prove that point, Michele's phone rang. "You better be close because Dean's wearing on my patience."

"That's what he does best," Sam agreed, his affection for his brother and that annoying habit not hidden. "I'm about half a mile away from the warehouse but you better come quick." At that moment her phone dinged with a text of a picture…of Dom's whole car on fire on the dirt road that led up to the warehouse. "These trunks aren't that well insulted…he might die of smoke inhalation before the fire cooks him alive."

Forgetting all about Dean, Michele swore and ran for the stairs, took them two at a time, desperate to reach Dom in time.

Not privy to Sam's side of the conversation or the text picture Michele got, Dean felt frustratingly in the dark. Was worried that Sam was off going mano e mano with Michele without thinking things through, putting into consideration that Dean couldn't move, that Sam couldn't just bust in the door and sweep him away to safety like his knight in shining armor, that he was still as stuck as he had been from the start. He couldn't offer Sam any help in this fight, and worse than that, he was Sam's weakness and Michele knew it. And she would use that against Sam…just like Dean had used talk about Michele's sister to distract her until Sam could get into position, set up whatever plan he had dreamed up on his way there.

"Stay focused, Sam. Stay focused," he coached his brother, his weakening voice echoing in the empty warehouse. Knew that it wasn't beneath Michele to tell Sam he was dead just to throw Sam off his game. "Don't let her spin her web. She's a liar Sam, a hunter, a woman. She knows how to use words as weapons." And it begrudged him that he and Sam both had helped her hone her craft. ' _I even let her have one of my silver knives that last hunt_.' And that just heaped insult onto injury.

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Though she had increased speed due to her vampire status, Michele still feared it had taken her too long to run down the dirt road to reach the burning car. Feared Dom was dead already even as she ran to the trunk, braved the flames to slam her fist onto the trunk lock to jar it open. Even as she leaned into the smoky interior to grab a handful of a jacket, there was movement in the trunk, proof that Dom wasn't dead. But amidst the acrid smell of burning rubber and the choking smoke, the other scent that reached her senses wasn't Dom's.

Sitting up in the trunk of the car, Sam reinforced his two handed grip on his machete and swung it for all he was worth. He saw Michele's head toppling off her body through the billowing smoke. Then Sam was crawling out of the trunk, choking and coughing and nearly retching as he stumbled away from the smoke and the flames. Sinking to his knees downwind from the burning car, he wiped at his burning eyes until he could clearly make out Michele's corpse on the ground, know that the threat to Dean was over.

Well, the vampire threat. But the picture of Dean bleeding out flashed in Sam's mind, reminded him that Dean was still in danger, that if he didn't reach Dean soon and get him medical help, Michele would end up getting her revenge from Purgatory.

" **Even when you feel so low like you might let go**

 **I will be the first hand reaching out.**

 **I will be the last one giving up on you"**

When the warehouse door banged open above him, Dean had hope that it was Sam, because bull in a china shop was Sam's style, especially when he knew his brother was in danger. Then there was the sound of someone taking the stairs three at a time before Sam's long legs made an appearance in the stairway and by the time his brother's face came into view, Dean didn't bother holding back his smile. "Sammy, good to see you."

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed in the happy worried tone only he could master then he was tearing across the distance that separated them and coming to kneel beside Dean. He reached out, cupped the side of Dean's neck, "You ok?"

"Still playing on the good guys team, if that's what you're asking," Dean sallied back, found it easier to joke about his Knight of Hell days than reflect on them.

"It wasn't," Sam sternly rebuked, knew Dean thought that should be his first concern, whether Dean was still human or not, could still be trusted but for Sam all that a far second to Dean's well-being. Then he gingerly moved Dean's hand from his stomach to the floor, drew in a sharp breath at seeing the damage to his brother up close and personal.

"It's still connected to the wall. Don't suppose you brought a blow torch ..or a hacksaw?" Dean maintained his lighthearted front for his sake and Sam's.

Sam didn't dignify that with an answer, instead tentatively touched the rebar poking out of his brother's side before carefully maneuvering around Dean to see the wall behind him. When his eyes came up to meet Dean's, they were that rare intense blue hue of mounting fear and unmitigated determination. "I have to call for a fire company and paramedics."

But Dean was already shaking his head. "What? No. Just help me off this vampire spit and we'll get out of here."

"And have you bleed out?! No way, Dean." Sam pulled his phone from his pocket but Dean's bloody hand covered his. "Sam, I take it Michele's decapitated head with fangs is somewhere on the premises, there's got to be blood all over the upstairs from her earlier snack and you're splattered with blood…and smell like you were in a campfire not at one. You can't bring firemen, paramedics or cops here. Not until we're gone."

"We don't have that option Dean," Sam stridently put down Dean's objections before gently prying Dean's hand from his cellphone.

"Ok…then…. you go. I'll handle the cops' questions," was Dean's next proposition.

Sam's eyebrows rose into his hair in surprise and his face radiated down right hostility at Dean's suggestion. "Not happening Dean," he snapped his voice rising in outrage, remembered Dean saying something similar when he was bleeding out from Metatron's angel blade. "And if you tell me it's better this way…." He drew in a trembling breath before he let it out with a regaining measure of calm, knew he shouldn't ..and didn't want to yell at his seriously wounded brother. He adopted a gentle but resolute tone when he spoke next. "I'm not leaving you, Dean. So just….don't suggest that again." Then Sam was dialing 911, was bringing Goodling's small emergency forces right to them, along with cops who wouldn't buy "vampire attack" as an explanation for the carnage surrounding the Winchesters.

Call made, Sam took off his coat and tucked it around Dean, hoping to mitigate some of the cold Dean was feeling at the blood loss. Then Sam sat down on the floor on Dean's uninjured side, rested his arms on his drawn up legs and let out a shaking breath before turning his face to his brother, wished he could do something to ease the pain his brother was in. "I'm sorry I didn't figure this out sooner."

Rolling his head to face Sam, Dean gave his brother a warm smile that even his bloody, pale appearance couldn't negate. "Trust me when I say you figured it out just in time, Sammy. She was going in for the first and last feast when you called."

Sam swallowed hard at that horrifying mental picture but gave a silent nod of his head. Cleared his throat before he asked, "The blood upstairs…."

"Couple of friggin' kids who chose today to do layups here. I begged her to leave them alone but…" Dean's voce dropped off .

Though Sam knew Dean would carry the guilt of those lost lives no matter what he said, he still couldn't let it go unvoiced, "Wasn't your fault, Dean. She made her choice. To make her first kill, to keep on killing…to kill those kids."

Dean gave no signs of acceptance of his pardon and Sam fell silent, was content to sit beside Dean, even hearing his brother's labored breathing was its own encouragement because Dean was still breathing. But then Sam remembered reaching Dean after Metatron yanked his angel sword from Dean's chest, how he had pulled Dean up to rest against the wall, got Dean on his feet and moving, that he told Dean he would get him help, make everything ok….and then Dean had died in his arms.

Terrified that they were on track for that to happen all over again, Sam gave up his falsely relaxed pose and turned to his brother, reached out and grabbed Dean's hand, gripped it tight, so Dean would grip back, prove he was still with him, still fighting, that they both were. "I…I screwed up last time, shouldn't have moved you, should have called 911. Was so caught up on saving you…and ended up failing you. And I can't make the same mistakes."

Squeezing Sam's hand with what strength he had, Dean soothed, "Whoa, Sam. I don't know what you're talking about but…."  
"After Metatron…after he….I shouldn't have moved you! It was stupid and rash and egotistical and I was thinking about police reports and getting you home….things that didn't matter!" Sam emotionally explained, shaking his head and looking away from Dean in shame. "But this time, I know what's important. I know my limitation. That I need other people's skills to save you."

"Sammy, hey, look at me," Dean prodded, waited until his brother's tortured eyes met his own before he continued. "It was a killing blow, Sammy. Metatron knew it…I knew it…you knew it. No 911 call was going to save me, or angel touch…or even you and your boyscout optimism," he lightly tacked on, eliciting a painful laugh from Sam that nearly cracked apart.

Making a swipe at his watery eyes, Sam vowed, "But I got you back and I'm keeping you, Dean. So screw the Mark, your long list of fans and your less than stellar ideas like hunting vampire nests on your own, not to mention your clumsiness today. You're not getting away from me that easily. "

"Clumsiness? Ouch, Sammy. Kick me when I'm down," Dean theatrically moaned in mocking hurt.

"Dean, you got shish-kebabed to a wall while being attacked by a vampire, who else does that but you."

"Good point. That vacation I talked about, I'm so going to deserve it."

"We both will," Sam vowed, proved that Dean was stuck with him through it all, every moment of the bad times until the good times arrived. That he'd make sure his brother got to live out that beach fantasy. And he'd be plopped in the sand at his side when he did.

"By the way, Sam, why is your face covered with soot, your boot heel melted and your voice sounds like you're that chain smoking mother from "Throw Momma from the Train?" Dean asked, his piercing gaze pinning Sam in place and demanding answers.

Silently Sam cursed his brother's perceptiveness and ability to ask the last questions Sam wanted to answer right then. Because there was no way Dean wouldn't flip out if he knew Sam had jumped into the trunk of a car he had set on fire to wait for Michele to show up so he could take her head. Labored breathing or not, Dean would expel his last breath reaming him out.

So it was a godsend on two fronts when Sam heard the sirens. But then the crushing reality that his brother's life would be put into someone else's hands other than his own hit him. "I gotta go direct them down here," he announced, at Dean's understanding nod, he gave Dean's hand one more squeeze before he gained his feet and raced up the stairs.

" **Even when you feel your breath fading from your lungs**

 **I will be the first hand reaching out.**

 **I will be the first, last, first, last and only one." ****

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 **TBC**

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**The song featured in this chapter is from Scott Stapp titled "Only One"

Thanks again for such a wonderful response to the first chapter! Hope some of your enjoyed this one as well. I have a few more chapters planned for this story, so if you're interested in more, drop me a review.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.


	3. Chapter 3: Divided

Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, or the Sonia Dada song, or Common Law nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: So I ended up borrowing Wes & Travis from the USA show "Common Law" but they are a little OCC probably, more hardcore and less humorous, at least in this chapter.

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Chapter Three: Divided

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" **God won't you deliver me**

 **From the pain and confusion**

 **Growing up in the city streets**

 **In a desperate situation"**

For as much as Sam knew he needed professional medical and rescue help for Dean, it was torture being forced to be on the sidelines while _strangers_ decided how to best save his brother's life. And yeah, by sidelines he meant hovering over the paramedics and rescue team's shoulders as they assessed the rebar conundrum and his brother's health. When one young, overeager rescue guy shifted Dean a little in his efforts to see the wall behind the trapped hunter, Dean barely stifled a cry of agony while Sam had no such restraint and bellowed, "Hey, watch it! He's kinda attached to the wall…you know the reason we need your questionable 'help'!" fighting back the urge to shove through the crowd surrounding his brother and handle things himself.

The rescue kid shot Sam a pissed look. "I know what I'm doing, sir," the "sir" a slur of false civility. "We're all highly trained for situations like this."

Sam was about to lay into the punk, tell him his friggin' brother wasn't a "situation" when he sensed Dean's eyes on him. Dean did an exasperation eye roll at the cockiness of the kid and Sam couldn't help but snort in amusement. Leave it up to Dean to make light of the "situation".

At least the paramedics had their heads on straight, had immediately set Dean up with an IV line and started to pack bandages around the entrance and exit wounds to slow down the blood loss. But, while their proficiency should have calmed Sam, it was the urgency in which they acted that scared Sam's spit less. Told him just how seriously Dean was hurt.

His eyes shifting back to his brother, Sam wanted Dean to give him a sign that everything would be ok, like he was still that little kid needing his big brother's strength to quiet his fears. But Dean's wasn't watching him, instead he was focused on whoever was coming down the stairs. When Dean's eyes jumped back to Sam, there was fear in his gaze.

Turning around to take on whatever had upset Dean, Sam stilled when he saw it was two men, both in their late twenties, one black and one white, who had come down into the basement. Though they were sporting plain clothes, Sam didn't miss the state trooper badges clipped to each man's belt, and apparently neither did Dean. It shouldn't have surprised him that state troopers were on the case, considering the trail of bodies Michele had left across Idaho, but that didn't mean the troopers were a welcome addition to the circus all this was turning out to be.

Sam strained to not tense up when the troopers exchanged a surprised look between themselves before crossing over to him. The black cop did the introduction for the pair. "I'm Trooper Travis Marks and this is my partner, Wes Mitchell." Sam gave a closed mouth smile and a nod of his head in return, all the while wishing he, or at least Dean, had a law enforcement badge to pretend this was all on the up and up, some investigation that got messy. But nope, couldn't be that easy. So he had to let the truth win out, that he had found that his brother was danger, came here and did whatever he had to do to save him. All this without mentioning vampires, of course.

Wes filled in the silence. "We understand that's your brother," his eyes going past Sam to the hubbub surrounding Dean.

"Yeah," Sam replied simply, having decided to feel his way around the questions instead of providing answers straight off, got the impression the cops before him were more perceptive than most he had come across.

When Wes' eyes returned their scrutiny to him, Sam got the impression he wasn't going to get off easy just because his brother was hurt. The cop's next words confirmed it. "With a decapitated, burned body outside, blood trails in the first floor of this warehouse and your brother's wounds indicating a struggle, we have a lot of questions and would like you to come down to the local sheriff's station and give your statement."

"Sure, absolutely," Sam readily agreed, tagged on the only thing non-negotiable. "Soon as I know my brother's going to be ok, I'll come to the station and tell you everything I know."

In response, Travis stepped forward, didn't seem intimidated by Sam's superior height but resolutely looked up at the taller man and corrected his assumptions, "Actually, we need you to come with us….now."

Stunned, Sam stammered, "What?! My brother…."shooting a look over his shoulder at Dean, who was seemingly oblivious to his own plight at the moment, was too intently drawn to the proceedings going on with his little brother. Giving Dean a small smile he hoped was encouraging, Sam turned back to the troopers, dropped his voice lower so Dean couldn't hear. "Listen, I will give you any information you want…after they get my brother to the hospital, that I know his injuries aren't life threatening."

Wes stepped forward to be shoulder to shoulder with his partner and inches inside Sam's personal space bubble, "I'm afraid that's not possible."

Fear and anger exploded in Sam's chest and he abandoned his pacifistic front. "I'm not leaving my brother's side," he declared, his tone threatening anyone who got in the way of him keeping that vow.

Sensing the volatile atmosphere, Travis tried to be a peacemaker. "I get that you're concerned for him and we'll keep you apprised of his condition."

" _Concerned_?!" Sam repeated back darkly. "He's bleeding out with rebar poking out of his stomach. And, of yeah, he's trapped here, could die before they…." Sam bit his lip, knew he was on an emotional edge and him losing it wouldn't help himself…or Dean. Taking in a breath, he tried for mercy, focused on Travis who seemed to have a heart. "He's my _brother_. Don't you get that I can't leave him, won't leave him, not like this." And he could see some softening in the man's eyes, knew there was a sliver of hope when the black cop turned to his white partner, seemingly intending to plead Sam's case with Wes.

But Wes shot his partner and Sam's hope down right then and there. "That's a nice sob story you have going on there but a private detective was trying to link you to two murders in Jefferson County and now you're at this scene, that's more justification than I need to remand you into our custody right now."

"Link me to the murders in Jefferson County…" Sam sputtered in stunned disbelief, couldn't even guess why they would think he was involved in those killing, especially since he and Dean hadn't been in the state at the time, heck, hadn't even known about the supposed Vetala attacks until Dom….. _'Had called asking for our help_.' Not able to suppress his anger, Sam cursed aloud, knew that Dom had been building this frame for him, that once Michele had killed Dean, Dom made sure Sam would be on the run, not only for Michele's other victims in the state but for his own brother's death too. That Dom was doing it out of some standpoint of love and protection for Michele didn't soften Sam's fury, not when the man had hoped to send Dean to his grave, when his actions might tear him from Dean's critically wounded side.

Running a hand through his hair, Sam tried to adopt an even tone. "Look, I wasn't even in the state when those murders happened."

"And you know the date of those murders, how?" Wes countered with a 'gotcha tone' and before Sam could refute his assumption of his guilt, the cop was pulling out his handcuffs, intent on following through with his threat.

Heartsick, Sam allowed himself to be jerked around by Wes, felt the first cuff cinch around his left wrist as his eyes met Dean's. Knew as badly as he was taking their pending separation, Dean was taking it worse when Dean gave a furious roar of "No!" and shoved the paramedics hovering over him away.

"Dean, no!" Sam commanded, guessing his brother's intentions. Then Dean gritted out a cry of agony between his clenched teeth as he tried to lever himself forward, free himself of the rebar, determined to climb to his feet and come to Sam's defense.

Sam's reaction was a move of desperation, borne out of his need to not let Dean further jeopardize his health or his life.

Intending to slap the other handcuff around Sam's right wrist, Wes didn't expect the suspect's right elbow to fly toward his face, delivering a blow to his nose that sent shockwaves of pain through his face, not to mention stun him enough to lose his grip on the handcuffs and blur his vision with tears. Then the suspect spun around, handcuffs dangling, and smashed a right cross into his jaw that snapped his head and knocked him to the ground.

Watching their suspect assault Wes, Travis didn't waste time thinking of moves to subdue the taller man, was instead reaching for his gun. But Sam halted Travis' move with a crushing grip on his wrist and drove his knee into Travis's gut, bending the cop over. But instead of pressing his advantage while the troopers were recovering from his blows, Sam did the unthinkable and turned his back on them, went to his brother. Crouching down in front of a still struggling-to-be-free Dean, Sam bracketed Dean's face in his hands, commanded, "Stop, Dean! Stop! Stay still!"

But Dean defiantly shook his head and his fingers clutched desperately onto his brother's coat sleeves even as he tried to move, wanting to get them both away from the cops, from their accusations, knew Sam wouldn't do the smart thing and run, not if he couldn't go with him. "Sam…they think…."

Tightening his hold on his brother's face and his eyes piercing into Dean's pained ones, Sam promised, "I'll be ok, Dean. I will." Let that sink in a moment before he qualified, "I'm ok as long as you are. So…." He tried for a smile but it was more a fractured mask of fear, "stop trying to get up and bleed out. Let the rescue team and the paramedics and the doctors do their thing and I'll get to the hospital as soon as I straighten all this out."

The fight bled away from Dean, leaving him drawing in gasping pained breaths. His "Sam…" came out as a croak and Dean knew it wasn't just the pain and the weakness that was choking him up but the knowledge that it wasn't going to be as easy as Sam made it sound, getting the murder charges cleared up. That between Sam's presence here and Dom's frame job on the other murders, the cops would have enough to hold Sam for a long while even if they never had enough to convict him, and Dean couldn't let that happen, couldn't handle the Mark's presence with Sam's absence. Hated to think of what control he might lose in just the next few hours when his defenses were crumbling under pain and drugs, because the Mark was nothing but opportunistic.

Pulling on a confidence he didn't feel, Sam bragged, "Dean, hey, I was practically a lawyer. I can defend myself."

"Right and last time you were my lawyer, Osiris handed out a guilty verdict," Dean grimly reminded his brother.

"Yeah, because you make a horrible client," Sam replied, keeping his tone lighthearted.

"True," Dean conceded his voice going weak as his eyes slipped shut.

Fisting a hand into Dean's shirt, Sam called out, "Hey! Hey!" causing Dean's eyes to snap out. "I'm only ok if you are, remember. So…you're gonna be ok, right?" he fearfully asked, hoped Dean knew what he was truly asking of him, that he wanted Dean to make a promise and keep to it.

"What? This?" Dean demurred, looking down to the rebar poking out of his flesh before meeting Sam's beseeching gaze. "It'll barely throw off my stats. I'll be back in the game before playoffs coach."

"Dean," Sam tremulously implored, didn't need false comfort and bravado from his brother right then, wanted something he could hold onto, accept as truth.

Reaching up with his blood stained hand, Dean clasped Sam's wrist, vowed, "I won't give up, Sam." because he got it now, that to give up on himself meant to give up on Sam and he couldn't do that, wouldn't do that.

Exhaling in relief, Sam gave Dean a nod of acceptance before he pulled his touch from Dean, obediently put his hands behind his head and lay down on the ground as the cops at his back had been screaming at him to do for the past few moments. Meekly, he let the cuff be snapped over his free wrist and the cops roughly yank him to his feet but it was still immeasurably hard to be frog marched up the stairs, to lose sight of his brother, still pinned and bleeding on the floor and looking so defeated.

And Sam wasn't sure who garnered more of his hatred, Michele for trying to kill Dean, Dom for setting all this up or the cops for thinking that were doing the right thing by taking him away from his brother.

" **What could I do different**

 **I was trying to survive**

 **God deliver me"**

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Watching Sam get dragged away in handcuffs hadn't just scared Dean, it had pissed him off. This was not how this hunt was supposed to go down. Ok, yeah, when he said yes to the hunt he had looked forward to a little flirting with Michele, a lot of smart mouthing off to Dom and being able to sink a silver knife into a pair Vetalas. The perfect mixture to satisfy himself and the Mark. Win Win.

' _Good thinking Dean. Like wiping out the nest in Tulsa to feed the Mark._ _Tell me again how you're still in the driver's seat?!_ ' And it was getting harder to sell himself that bill of goods, especially with the nightmares encoring every single night, nightmares of Cain's prediction coming true: him taking Crowley's head with the First Blade, plunging an angel sword through Cas' chest…..of Sam turning his back on him and walking away, not heeding his calls for him to not leave him…and the feel of Ruby's knife is his hand as he threw it, as it sank into Sam's back, as his brother toppled over. Dead by his hand.

After, Dean would wake chocking on his brother's name and shivering, wishing, as terror filled him, that he had let Cain finish him with the blade, do what the world's first murderer deemed a kindness.

" **I have heard the voice of evil**

 **Speak to me alone**

 **Sitting cold and lonely**

 **And so far away from home"**

The paramedic's insistent voice thankfully intruded on Dean's thoughts, had him blinking and looking up, not to a paramedic but some guy only a few years Dean's senior sporting a denim coat over blue medical scrubs, his brunette hair a bit unruly. "Dean, right? I'm Doctor Conner."

"You do…house calls?" Dean asked, knew the doc hadn't originally been among the group hovering around him, crapping in their pants too scared to make a move.

Dr. Conner smiled. "I do on rare occasions, all part of our Spud State, small town hospitality package. I gotta warn you though, it's not covered under Obamacare."

"Shocker there," Dean drawled, appreciated dealing with someone with backbone.

But then the doctor got down to brass tacks. "Dean, the rescue team, they can't get to the rebar, not without jarring you. And if they try to go through the wall and cut the pipe, the entire wall structure may crumble."

That statement had Dean rolling his head to the left, giving the cocky rescue kid a smirk, "Took you forty minutes to determine something I knew five seconds after I got skewered."

The kid had the good grace to blush and step away, confer quietly with his other now unneeded rescue team members.

Turning back to Dr. Conner, Dean croaked out, "Get me out of here already," giving the doctor permission to do what he had to do. Was anxious to get to the hospital and get patched up so he could either bail Sam out of jail or break him out.

"The paramedics have been giving you drugs to thicken your blood to lessen your blood loss but not much in the way of a painkiller and this is gonna hurt," the doctor warned.

"Already hurts," Dean confessed in a rare show of truth.

But the doctor still hesitated. "You're not stable, we're fifteen minutes from the hospital and we won't know the extent of damage until we get you free."

"You want my blessing…you got it," Dean gritted out, but the doctor remained unmoving so Dean growled, "Just do it!"

That prompted the doctor and the paramedics to finally break from their suspension. Putting hands on him, they pulled him forward and up. Dean found that there was no biting back his scream any more than there was swallowing down the tasty tang of blood welling up his throat. Choking and coughing in a panic to draw in breath, he felt the blood slip between his lips, sputter down his chin. "Oh crap," he wheezed, knew that spitting up blood meant internal bleeding, just like he was pretty certain the white light edging his vision wasn't going to abate. And it didn't, spread until it filled his vision right before it started to go dark.

He heard from a long distance away, "Heart rate and blood pressure's dropping. We're losing him!' and Dean was glad Sam wasn't there for this part. He had put Sam through enough lately. Abruptly knew that he didn't want to come back from the other side with Sam hovering over him, didn't want his first act as a reborn demon to be the taking of his brother's life.

Internally he was already composing the letter he would leave for Sam this time: Don't Come For Me…I'm Already Gone.

And then Dean was as good as his word, was gone.

" **God won't you deliver me**

 **I've never been before**

 **People say you're watching me**

 **But I'm not really sure"**

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"I want my phone call," Sam demanded for the fifth time since the troopers had manhandled him into their vehicle, watched as the two cops exchanged looks before Wes undid the handcuff that bound Sam to the interrogation table while Travis stood far enough back that Sam couldn't attack him and yet close enough to intervene if Sam tried to hurt Wes. Their preparedness was for nothing when Sam docilely let Wes lead him out to a hallway and handcuff him to a bar beside a payphone. Then the troopers left Sam to his privacy.

Snatching the phone off the hook immediately, Sam dialed, was praying that he didn't get voice mail when the wonderful sound of Cas' voice came to him. "Hello?"

Sam's words rushed out of him, "Cas, it's Sam. I need you to come to Gooding Idaho, go to the local hospital and heal Dean."

Concern coated Cas' reply, "What happened?"

Sam choked back the lump in his throat. "What always happens to us. Bad karma. Dean got impaled by rebar in a building and I…I don't know…I'm not there so I don't know how bad…." he faltered, his voice cracking under the fear and guilt consuming him. Drawing in a steadying breath, he knew it did no good to sugarcoat things. "It looked bad Cas."

Detecting a very important anomaly, Cas asked, "Wait, why aren't you in the hospital with Dean?"

Sam ran a not so steady hand down his face, allowed the weariness and raw fear show in his tone, "I got arrested but that doesn't matter. You have to save Dean, make sure…."

Cas knew Sam's fear because it was his own. "I still don't have the ability to fly but I'm in Washington, the state, not the United States' capital."

Relief washed over Sam at the news that Cas would come, was, in fact, close, which was some kind of miracle in their world. "Thanks Cas and tell Dean…" And there were a thousand sappy things he wanted to say to his brother but what he ended up asking Cas to pass on was "Tell him sometimes his choices in women sucks, just like mine does."

Cas understood how the Winchesters dealt with trauma, knew Sam's words were a deflection for the fear that coursed under them. "I'll tell him, Sam," knew his words weren't about passing on Sam's words, were about making sure Dean was alive to hear them, that Sam didn't lose his brother to the Mark again. ' _That neither one of us does,_ ' Cas revised as Sam ended the call.

Tucking the phone back into his coat pocket, Cas readily abandoned his lead on Metatron and got in his car. Grabbing the United States map from the back seat, he began mapping out his route to where Dean and Sam were even as he sent the car barreling down the road, exceeding the posted speed limit without remorse. After all, he had forsaken decrees far more important than traffic laws to save his best friend. Didn't think there was much he wouldn't do or risk when it came down to sparing Dean's life…or his soul.

Unbidden Metatron's words echoed in Cas's head.

" _Ah, so Gadrel bites the dust. And the angel tablet, arguably the most powerful instrument in history is in pieces. And for what again? Oh that's right, to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in heaven's flag but ultimately it was all about saving one human, right? Well guess what…he's dead too."_

And as much as Cas had wanted to deny Metatron's words, some part of him knew they weren't a lie, had begun to sense the loss already. Felt a part of himself had been taken, not unlike the feeling of having his grace being drained from his soul. But it wasn't until Sam answered Dean's cell phone, brokenly declared, "Dean's dead, Cas," that Cas finally began to grasp the full extent of human grief, of knowing the person you loved, who you deemed a brother, was lost to you. Yet there were worse things, like knowing that his failings had doomed Dean's soul, that evil had taken over the purity of his friend's heart, that the Mark had claimed Dean's humanity and stripped him of his ability to love.

' _I can't let that happen again, I won't,_ ' Cas vowed but a spark of doubt in his own abilities flared inside, had him calling out for his absentee Father. _'Please Father, don't let me be too late. Don't let me fail Dean, fail Sam again. You allowed Satan to tempt Job but you never gave him Job's life. Please don't do any less for Dean, don't turn your back on him. Please don't.'_

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Sam's leg jumped nervously under the interrogation table, he hated being in the dark, not knowing if Dean was out of the warehouse, was ok. Because the two cops, unlike their promise, hadn't 'apprised him of his brother's condition'. Not once. "Any news on my brother?"

"No," Wes shot him down without looking up from his file of the crime scene.

Sam turned imploring eyes to Travis. "Just tell me he's at the hospital, that he's in surgery…that he's not dead."

That didn't seem an unreasonable request to Travis so he dug out his phone and asked dispatch to transfer him to the hospital. When the connection went through, he asked for an update on Sam's brother, nodded his head as the information came to him, his eyes skirting away from Sam's mid-conversation.

That avoidance had Sam's gut dropping to the floor. Sitting up straight in the chair, he wished the handcuff's didn't limit his reach, that he could snatch the phone from Travis' hand and hear the update on his brother for himself. When Travis ended the call, Sam breathlessly demanded, "Well?"

Travis opened his mouth to give an answer but Wes cut him off.

"How about tit-for-tat, you tell us everything you know, like you promised, and then we'll tell you your brother's condition?"

"Blackmail!? My brother might be dying and you're…." Sam slammed his fist down on the table, causing it to rattle and threaten to collapse. "You're supposed to be the good guys, to have a heart! But it's not about people, it's about looking good with your superiors, getting the case closed, even if you're accusing the wrong people. My brother is the victim in all this!"

"We know that," Wes quietly conceded, a tinge of shame in his features after Sam's accusation.

Sighing, Travis knew Wes' approach was the one with the best chance of success, so he slid his phone away and joined Wes' tactics. "Did your brother try and stop you from killing that woman in the road, is that why you fought? I'm sure you didn't mean for him to get hurt, not like that."

"I didn't do that to Dean!" Sam denied in outrage.

Travis wasn't convinced. "He forgave you, that much was clear. And he'd probably lie to back up whatever story you told. I think a brother who's that loyal to you deserves your loyalty back."

"He has it!" Sam thundered, was so sick of having to defend and prove his devoted to Dean.

It was Wes who challenged, "Prove it. Don't drag him down with you. Tell us he wasn't involved in the murders with you."  
"He. Wasn't!" Sam angrily shot back. "And neither was I."

Wes turned to Travis like Sam no longer existed, "He's not gonna tell us the truth so I guess he doesn't care to hear about his brother's condition. Makes me glad I didn't have a brother. I mean…ouch…not caring if your own fresh and blood was alive or dead…."

That was too much for Sam. Using his long legs to his advantage, he kicked Wes' chair over, enjoyed hearing the crash and rush of pained air the man exhaled at his back's jarring impact with the floor. Travis leapt forward to land a blow across Sam's jaw, splitting his lip. But by then Wes was off the ground, grabbing Travis by the torso and hauling him away from Sam.

Bloody lip and eyes blazing, Sam chided the troopers, "If something happens to Dean while you've got me stuck in here listening to your stupid theories, my loyalty to my brother will be the _last thing_ you ever doubt."

"Is that a threat?!" Travis heatedly volleyed back making a move to approach Sam but Wes shoved him out the interrogation door, didn't say a word until he had the door closed behind them. Seeing the looks their volatile exit from the interrogation room had garnered, Wes pulled Travis down the hallway into a spare office and shut the door.

Travis jerked out of Wes' hold and paced the small length of the room. "We're getting nowhere with him!"

Wes ran a frustrated hand down his face. "No, we're not." Then he leaned against the desk in the room. "So…how's his brother doing?"

The question had Travis stilling and his expression changed before Wes' eyes from angry frustration to sympathetic understanding.

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If there was one thing Dr. Patrick Conner hadn't ever gotten used to, it was the way someone could be talking and seemingly in stable condition one minute and then flat-lining the next. It made him realize that he wasn't in control, was just delusional enough on occasion to _think_ that he was.

Case in point: the guy from the warehouse. Pretty strong pulse for as much blood loss as he had suffered, blood pressure amazingly good, he had been coherent, heck, _impatient_ and _ballsy_ in the face of his pain and his untenable position. Until they levered him off the rebar, then everything went belly up.

Cursing Patrick bent over and held his bowed head in his hands, heard the ICU chair creak underneath his shifting weight. They shouldn't have moved him, should have found a way to keep in the rebar while they got him to the trauma center. Should have done _something_ different.

Drawing in a breath to get himself back together again, Patrick lifted his head, took in the sight of the man barely alive in the ICU bed. His vitals had bottomed out at the warehouse but he got him back, yes, but there was more to saving a person's life than getting a heart to beat again. They had staunched the internal bleeding but were unable to determine as of yet if the brain had been compromised by the blood loss and oxygen deprivation when they lost him in the warehouse. Didn't know if his nicked colon would heal or stop functioning any moment now. Didn't have any indication if he would regain consciousness.

And on top of all that gloom and doom, there was no one to fight at the man's side, to tell him to not go. Patrick learned an hour ago while standing watch outside the recovering room that held his patient, that he had apparently missed all the excitement with the man's brother, had arrived after the Idaho troopers had taken the brother away in handcuffs, but not before the brother put up a struggle to not be yanked away from his brother's side. "Your brother, he knew you'd need him at your side, goading you to suck it up and be ok, right? I mean, I have two brothers and there's nobody that spurs me into doing stuff I don't want to do more than those two. They taunted me into asking out the prettiest girl in school…and laughed when she turned me down cold. And they threatened to kick my butt if I wussed out and quit medical school when I was so close to graduating. Course now they think they deserve free medical care from me after they go and do some crazy motorcycle stunt that nearly puts them into traction," smiling at the audacity of his brothers, but the gesture faded quickly when his patient remained stoically unresponsive. "Hope it's ok if I hang out with you awhile until your brother gets here." When there was no protest, he sighed and settled back into the chair.

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Left alone in the interrogation room, Sam slammed his palms down on the table and hung his head. He had never felt such a hatred for police officers like he did right then. Well, wait, Agent Henriksen had rated right up there at the top when he threatened to incarcerate he and Dean in separate prisons, said that he'd never see his brother again. But then again, these troopers and Henriksen had a parallel trait: they made it their ambition to separate he and Dean.

But, logically, Sam knew the troopers here were simply blind to the real evidence. That Dom was the SOB that deserved his full-fledged hatred for getting him locked up while Dean was, hopefully being rushed to the hospital. And if he thought sending the cops to where he had Dom stashed would get him released, he would do it in a heartbeat. But Dom had made this frame-up a good one, had already established himself as the good guy, a private investigator on the road seeking the killer, had cast Sam in the villain role. And if the cops brought Dom in, that's the story he would tell and Sam didn't doubt he had more evidence against Sam all lined up to be revealed.

Sam punched the tabletop, imagined it was Dom's face he was plummeting. Would do far worse to Dom when he finally got sprung and after he had Dean tucked back at the Bunker on the mend. _'On the mend, you don't even know if Dean's alive?!'_ And his only comeback was _, 'he has to be.'_ There was no other outcome Sam could endure. His brother just had to be alive.

" **Sitting cold and lonely**

 **And so far away from home**

 **In the darkness of the prison cell**

 **I hear the angry screams**

 **Crying out to no one**

 **In a place where no one dreams**

 **God won't you deliver me"**

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Patrick swore that one minute he was alone in the room, filling out charts and the next a brown haired man in a trench coat was at his patient's side. "Are you a family member?" he posed, causing the man's head to snap in his direction. Indicating the man had been unaware of his presence until he spoke.

There was a minuscule pause before the man's low voice answered with a unyielding "Yes," as if he expected Patrick to question that proclaimed connection to the injured man.

But Patrick didn't doubt the man's claim, saw the worry and the love and the protectiveness in the blue eyes that seared into him. Coming to his feet, he crossed to Cas and held out his hand, misguessed that this was Dean's infamous brother, newly sprung from jail, he greeted "I missed you at the warehouse. I'm Doctor Conner and I was your brother's surgeon."

With a beat of awkwardness, Cas reached out his hand and shook the doctor's hand. Considered not correcting the doctor's assumption before he thought of how Sam would feel about his deception but in the same breath, he needed to claim a familiar relationship to Dean. So he said the one that felt most true, "I'm Dean's brother…. from another mother." Which technically wasn't an out and out lie. Dean felt like his brother and Mary Winchester wasn't Cas' biological mother. Then Cas struggled to find the right terminology. "Half brother, that's what Dean is to me. Sam, Dean's younger brother, was the one at the warehouse."

"Aaahhhh…ok," Patrick responded to the man's stilted conversational skills. "Well, I can update you on Dean's condition."

"Yes, please," Cas said, his eyes worriedly dropped to Dean's entirely too still form, cringed at the pain he felt emanating off his friend, noted the paleness of Dean's skin and the shallowness of his breathing. Ached to heal Dean immediately, but knew he couldn't until the doctor left the room.

"The rebar nicked his colon, causing internal bleeding and sever blood loss. Though we were able to stitch the tear in the colon, his vitals are weak. He's not regained consciousness and we don't know if there's been any brain damage due to the blood loss or lack of oxygen when he stopped breathing at the warehouse," Patrick explained, waited for Dean's brother to lash out at him for the pessimistic news, to accuse him of not acting appropriately at the warehouse by moving Dean, but Dean's brother simply said, "I see."

Cas fought down a wave of panic at the doctor's grim news and it took a great deal of strength to not reach out to heal Dean even in the presence of the doctor. Tearing his eyes from Dean, he met the doctor's surprisingly apprehensive gaze. "Can I be alone with him?"

Feeling as if he were being miraculously left off the hook for his failures, Patrick gave a quick nod of his head. "Sure, absolutely" but he stopped at the door and turned back to his patient's brother. "I know it's not medically sound but….I think he just needs to know he's not alone, that someone's in this fight with him, won't let him go."

Cas tilted his head, stated, not in effrontery but incredulity that his loyalty was even being questioned, "That last thing I will do..or Sam will do is let him go."

Patrick couldn't hold back a bittersweet smile. "Great, now tell him that," nodding to Dean's motionless form before he left the room, knew that medically they had done all they could for his patient, that now it was time for his brother to do what brothers did best: taunt you, goad you and bribe you until you caved and did what they wanted you to do, just to shut them up.

With the doctor's departure, Cas settled his hand over Dean's forehead, felt his friend's pain as if it were his own, felt also the corrupt whispering of the Mark trying to coil around Dean's soul, strangle out his friend's noble heart. Using his grace, he sought to repair the man's broken body, to beat back the Mark into the hole Dean struggled to keep it locked away in. But the Mark's hold wasn't so easily maneuvered, slipped through his grasp and hid in his friend's darker depths, refusing to be stifled. And when Cas' grace could not fully heal Dean's injuries, the angel knew it was the Mark's doing, that it knew that if Dean's health was completely restored, it would set back its ambitions.

But Cas persisted, tried to give as much of his grace to Dean as he could, to heal him and to beat back the Mark. Sagging in weakness, Cas collapsed into a chair, his hand falling from Dean's forehead to rest on his friend's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Dean. The Mark…it won't allow me to fully heal you. But I did what I could and you are no longer in danger of dying." Wished Dean would prove that statement to him, open his eyes and make fun of his inability to heal him fully, say something about his batteries not being fully charged or his mojo being on strike..or something that meant his friend wasn't beat by his injuries or the Mark.

Accepting the wisdom of the doctor's advice and thinking of what Sam would say if he were there in his place, Cas leaned over close to Dean and vowed, "You're not alone. I'm fighting for you, Dean. Sam is fighting for you and we won't let you go. And oh…Sam says your choice in women suck. And in light of my past romantic interludes, I don't think my choices are ..prudent either. After I made love to April, she killed me and if that is how romance is supposed to turn out, there would be no one alive to procreate." Cas gave a hopefully look to Dean, waiting for his friend to roll his eyes at his total lack of comprehension of human's interaction. But Dean still didn't move, causing Cas to clutch onto Dean's shoulder with a little more desperation. "Dean, if you could wake up now I'd appreciate it" then Cas sat there, waiting for his friend to open his eyes, to prove to him all over again that Dean Winchester's will wasn't something easily defeated, especially when his friends..his _family_ had need of him.

" **There's a crying angel over me**

 **That is keeping me alive**

 **God deliver me" ****

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When the interrogation door opened, Sam braced himself for round two of the Troopers game of 'pin the monster murder on the hunter' but his eyes widened as none other than Sheriff Jody Mills entered the room. "Jody, what are you doing here?!"

"Your angel friend Cas called Claire to get in contact with me and he told me that Dean was hurt and you were in jail. And since my resume doesn't include miracle healing, I thought I'd try my hand at getting the murder charges dropped or you remanded into my custody."

"Jody, I would hug you if I could! Have you seen Dean? Is he ok?" Sam excitedly rambled.

"I came here first," Jody announced claiming a seat across from Sam.

Sam's face fell. "What?! Why?! Dean's seriously hurt and I haven't heard any news…"

Jody reached across and captured Sam's fisted hand. "He's in ICU, that's all they would tell me." She saw the way that news hit Sam…right in the heart but he bravely nodded, accepted the good in the news that was there, that Dean was alive, seriously hurt but still alive.

' _Dean's not dead..or a demon, focus on that_ ,' Sam coached himself before he captured Jody's hand in his. "Go to him, Jody. Cas is coming but he might not be there yet…"

"And if I show up there without you, Dean will flip out," she pointed out, giving Sam her motherly soft encouraging smile. "Then whatever good the docs did he'll undo trying to come to _your_ rescue."

Impishly, Sam grinned, "Ah, yeah, that scene already played out today."

"Yup, just like I predicted. So, let's get you sprung then we can both ream out your brother for giving us more grey hairs. Deal?" Jody posed, knew that it wasn't easy for Sam to not be at his brother's side when he was hurt, helpless to protect himself if some monster came knocking.

Pulling on a tremulous but real smile, Sam agreed, "Deal."

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TBC

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** Song is "Deliver Me" from Sonia Dada's album.

Thanks so much for lavishing love on last chapter! And I appreciate anyone who's spoiling me by reading this chapter! Hope you are still enjoying the story and welcome Cas & Jody's inclusion.

Have a great day! And I send out my gratitude and love for those presently in the US military service and those we've lost. Your personal sacrifices were not in vain. We honor you on Memorial Day.

Cheryl W.


	4. Chapter 4: Lengths You'll Go

Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, or the Shovels & Rope song, or Common Law nor am I making any profit from this story.

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Chapter Four: Lengths You'll Go

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" **When the devil is all around and got you crawling on the ground  
On your hands and your knees with an apple in your mouth  
You will know how far you'll go to make your peace with God"**

 _Claire's pseudo father Randy isn't the first to fall under Dean's knife but he's the most satisfying. That dark ache in Dean relishes the light fading in the man's terrified gaze, trapped in a corner and unable to run, having not had a hand in striking the match that was Dean. It's a sick courtesy when Dean backs up a step, allows the man the hope of living, of slipping past him to the door, before he slashes the knife blade across Randy's chest then raises it to slit his throat. And Dean tells himself Randy deserved it, they deserved it, that he had warned them and they hadn't heeded it, that what he did…it was his right, that he had the power, the insight, the burning righteousness to exact judgment. That the Mark made everything clear, so friggin' clear, made his choices seem like foregone conclusions. Like hunting in Purgatory, killing monsters indiscriminately, sure in the knowledge he was imbued with the right to do good, to exterminate evil with prejudice, to take lives so he could live._

 _As he stands there, blood dripping from his knife, the bloody bodies strewn at his feet, he feels like a conqueror, as strong as he's ever been. And when he senses a presences at his back, he reacts without thought, knows that casualties are acceptable in this arena, doesn't register that the presence is Sam until his knife's done its work, has sunk into Sam's stomach to the hilt. And Sam's startled, anguished, pained expression rips away the lie of the Mark, drowns Dean in shame and regret and grief. Even as Sam's legs give out on him, Dean's catching him, going to the ground with his brother, trying to hold in his brother's blood that's surging from around the knife's merciless sharp blade._

 _When Sam's eyes hold his, the forgiving love in his brother's eyes condemn Dean to someplace worse than even hell could imagine. And yet the Mark's insidious voice murmurs in the background that Sam got what he deserved, that Sam betrayed him time and time again and this day was always on the horizon, that he did Sam a favor…like Cain thought he did Abel a favor. But when Sam dies in his arms, the Mark's no match for the sorrow and self-hatred that floods Dean's soul, that gushes out of Dean as a tormented shout._

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Dean's shout startled Cas out of the hospital chair, had him diving to Dean's side. Hands seizing onto his friend's shoulders, Cas was surprised when Dean didn't lurch from sleep but instead lay limp under his touch, only his voice giving response of another choked shout, this time of his brother's name "'Sam!"

Wishing to end his friend's tormented nightmare, Cas commanded in that angel tone he usually didn't bother using on Dean because his friend rarely shrunk under its tenor, "Dean! Dean, wake up!" Though Cas anticipated Dean's eyes flying open, his friend trying to jackknife off the mattress took him by surprise. But he suppressed the man's attempt easily, held Dean fast in his grip and pinned to the bed. "Dean, it's Cas."

It took a few blinks before Dean's eyes gave way from confusion to recognition, before the hunter hoarsely asked, "Cas?"

"Yes," Cas confirmed, his eyes holding Dean's lending Dean whatever peace his friend would take from his presence, felt his own fear lessen when Dean exhaled in relief at the realization that it was him at his side. But that peace didn't last, was replaced with dread when Dean's eyes darted past Cas and didn't see his brother.

With no Sam in sight, Dean's nightmare/memories came back to him full force, had him gasping out, "Where's Sam? Did I hurt Sam?!" He tried again to sit up, wanted to run the hallways searching for his brother but Cas still held him fast to the bed.

Realizing that Dean's fear was the work of the Mark, Cas steadfastly assured, "No, Dean, you didn't hurt Sam. Whatever you dreamed, it wasn't real."

At Cas' words, the fight went out of Dean and he sank back heavily onto the bed, closed his eyes and did a few hard swallows. "It was real….just not the ending," he corrected Cas, was fuzzy on why he was in the hospital right then but knew him killing Randy and the other guys in that house was all too real.

Loosening his probably bruising grip on Dean's arms, Cas straighten and his face creased with worry and sympathy. "Sam said you've been having daily nightmares," he quietly said, hoping his friend took the words in the vein of worry not criticism that they were meant in.

Dean's eyes snapped open with Cas' statement, he didn't know Sam knew that, had foolishly thought he was keeping that weakness from his brother. Shame washed over him. Clearing his throat, he aimed to put the pieces of his memories into a full picture, "Speaking of Sam…" But he didn't say more, hoped Cas filled in the blanks because he didn't trust his recollection of events, maybe didn't want to, not if Sam had really been arrested, hauled out of the warehouse in cuffs.

Cas let out a beleaguered sigh. "Jail." At Dean's look of alarm, he soothed, "But I've asked for help to get him released."

Brow furrowed as the memories became concrete in his mind, Dean scowled at the news that Sam really had been dragged from the warehouse in cuffs, was sitting in jail for Michele's murder spree at the warehouse as well as Michele's headless corpse. And it was up to Cas to spring Sam? "What help? An angel with a perchance at jail breaks?" he skeptically challenged.

At Dean's guess, Cas's head tilted in confusion. "I know of no such angel."

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Dean gritted out, "Cas, who'd you call to help Sam?"

"Sheriff Mills from Sioux Falls. You and Sam speak highly of her and you trusted her to take care of Claire so I knew I could trust her."

"Jody?! You dragged Jody into this mess, just awesome," Dean grumbled, not liking to think what career risks the sheriff was taking this time. But then another thought had him scrutinizing Cas. "Yeah and how is it you're here?"

"Sam used his one phone call from jail to call me and requested that I come heal you." Then the angel did an uncharacteristic nervous shift of his feet in shame before he confessed, "I'm sorry, Dean. I was unable to restore you to full health. The Mark countered my efforts."

Just the mention of the Mark had Dean unconsciously rubbing his fingers over the scar on his forearm. "Keeping me at half charge, hoping I'll lower my guard, succumb to temptation and just give in…" He gave a dark chuckle. "This thing _invented_ mind games."

Cas remained silent and drenched in helplessness. His interaction with the Mark that day proved that he was no match for its power. Plus, having felt its evil firsthand, he now feared even more for Dean. Dean was the strongest willed man he had ever known but the evil that resided in the Mark, it wouldn't stop until Dean did its bidding. Would stamp down Dean's will, would crush his goodness, would sooner or later make Dean a slave to its malevolent desires.

Cas was jerked out of his dark thoughts by Dean's commanding, "Cas, find my clothing, I need to get out of here." And again, Cas used his superior strength to pin Dean to the bed, to stop his attempt to sit up. "Dean, didn't you hear what I said? I didn't heal you, was only able to ensure your wounds were no longer life threatening."

Cas' clarification did nothing to derail Dean's plan. "Not life threatening, I can work with that. Now grab my clothing…"

But Cas shot down Dean's scheme with a growled shout of "No!" that got Dean's wide eyes meeting his. Urging himself to calm down, Cas continued in a voice more controlled but no less resolute, "Sam entrusted me to take care of you and I've failed in that in the past," instantly thought of Alastair breaking from the devil's trap and nearly killing Dean, "but I'm not going to fail in it today. You're not leaving this bed, Dean. You're letting the medical staff do what they can to finish what I couldn't: to fully heal you."

Realizing how tightly wound Cas was, Dean reached out patted Cas on the chest, "Taking me off the 'more-likely-to-die-than-live' list, you did good Cas. Thanks."

Cas basked in Dean's praise and appreciation and gave an accepting nod of his head before he straighten again, stood by his friend's bedside. But wasn't foolish enough to think the battle had been won, not when it came to Dean looking out for Sam. So he offered up an appeasement, "I won't let you leave the hospital but I will call Jody, she should have arrived in town by now and spoken with the police about the charges Sam is facing."

"Yes, do it," Dean immediately insisted, even though he already knew the evidence that the cops had against Sam, that they would consider Sam caught red handed at the scene. ' _He risked prison for you, to stay with you._ ' And his brother's loyalty, that just heaped more condemnation on Dean's head because he knew how unworthy he was of it, especially lately when he was too weak to stifle the murmurings of the Mark. Had so much innocent blood on his hands, almost had _Sam's_ blood on his hands. Began to worry that, even if, by some miracle, the Mark one day was off his skin, its stain might never be off his soul.

" **There must be some other way, I just don't know  
Gotta get myself back up on that high road  
But nobody knows that like you do"**

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He was risking Jody's career, maybe even her life, and yet Sam didn't shy away from sending her to do his bidding. Any more than he had ringing Bobby up in heaven to get the older hunter to spring Metatron, or sending Charlie out into the world to try and track down the Book of the Damned. And Lester…he was just a pawn to him, a means to find a way to Crowley and his brother. And the fact that Lester ended up selling his soul and getting killed by Dean, that wasn't keeping Sam up at night like it should. ' _Because I got Dean back, because I got what I wanted and Lester…he didn't have a quarter of the goodness my brother possesses. So his life for Dean's…still a trade I would make.'_

The vision of Suzie that the Werther box generated suddenly came to his mind, her words slicing into his conscience. _"Anything's worth it as long as you two make it out alive. You think Dean's the wild card, the loose cannon but you're making deals with witches and opening Pandora's box down there. You're the reckless one. You'd do anything to keep clinging to that doomed brother of you. How many more will die Sammy?'_

Sam slammed his fist onto the interrogation table again, internally shouted, ' _Enough_!' to shut out the guilt that was trying to lay claim to him. He didn't have time or the luxury for guilt, not if he wanted to save Dean. And he would save him, there was no other outcome he could accept. So to do that it meant him getting out of jail, reaching his brother's side, meant sending Jody off to break the law and set Dom up, meant doing whatever he had to do to get back to Dean, to keep his plans to save Dean moving forward.

Blind, callous, unswerving determination to do whatever had to be done to save each other, it ran in their family. Because maybe his father's choices had been bad, maybe they were self-centered, they certainly scarred he and Dean irrevocably, and just maybe Sam finally understood what drove his father to hunt down Mary's killer, to turn his sons' into hunters, to seemingly heartlessly put his sons in harm's way. Did all that to ensure that, if Mary's killer came for his sons, he and Dean would be prepared, they would not die like Mary had, that, if John could, he would wipe that threat out before it ever reached his sons. As if John had known in his gut that Mary's death was just the first, that whatever killed her would set its sights on his sons. And he had been resolute on making sure his sons didn't fall victim to that evil, no matter if they ended up hating him in the process.

' _Like I thought I hated Dean for allowing Gadreel to possess me in order to save me. Like Dean might hate me for lying to him, not telling him about not burning the Book of the Damned, working with Rowena to find a cure for the curse of the Mark.'_ His father had borne that hatred from his sons, Dean had borne that hatred from him and Sam knew he could bear that hatred from Dean, would do it if his efforts freed Dean of the Mark, ensured his brother would never be a demon again. After all, what was a little hate between family if it saved the ones you loved?

" **I'm going down a long road, maybe it's the wrong road  
But either way I gotta find my way back home again  
It's too late to turn back now, gotta get the lead on out  
Gotta find some way to make it right on"  
**

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Jody wasn't sure when her status changed from a mother who had lost her son to a mother of four. Though she would deny, straight out, that she had adopted the Winchester boys, that didn't make it untrue. _'Yeah, why else did I agree to steal a car, drive it to this pit of a motel and help frame a fellow hunter.'_ But it was actually an easy choice, knowing said hunter had set Dean up to be killed by his vampire girlfriend, not to mention the pleading look Sam had leveled at her across the interrogation table. Dang but she needed to get tougher when it came to saying no to those boys.

' _And be a little more concerned about my career instead of acting on some twisted motherly protective instinct'_ because the tongue lashing she had given the State Troopers on Sam's case? So wasn't going to get her good press.

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**

The two State Troopers had ambushed her the second she walked out of Sam's interrogation room. "What were you doing in there with our suspect?!" the white trooper angrily snapped.

Instead of answering, Jody came to stand toe to toe with her fellow law enforcement brethren. "What kind of pricks are you two?! You didn't tell him his brother was alive?! Is in the ICU! I've worked with some heartless egomaniacs before but you guys are taking the cake." Had seen the drastic change in Sam's sullen features when she had told him Dean was alive, although in the ICU, like Sam was fighting to not breakdown in a show of utter relief.

"And who are you again?" the black trooper asked, with more civilly than his partner probably possessed on a good day.

"Sherriff Jody Mills of Sioux Falls. Sam used his one phone call to contact me, needed someone to stand up for him since you Troopers don't bother with something as inconsequential as gathering actual proof before making an arrest," she spat, hands on her belt so she didn't do what she wanted to do and land a punch or two.

"He's not under arrest, he's being held for questioning," Wes stiffly corrected, didn't want to show their hand yet, to mention they were comparing Sam's fingerprints with the ones found in the murder in Jefferson county.

"His brother's gravely injured and you handcuffed him and dragged him off, in front Dean, for _questioning_?!" Jody recapped, had a very good clue of how badly the brothers probably took that separation and it twisted her heart. "Why don't we get real here. You have something more on him than some private detective showing his picture around the last murder site? Because if showing someone's picture around is probable cause for arrests, a bunch of proud grandparents would be responsible for putting their grandkids in prison."

"What's your relationship with our suspect? Because unless you're Sioux Falls sheriff _and_ an attorney, you're exceeding your jurisdiction," Wes heatedly pointed out, though he felt a bit like a hypocrite when Travis shot him a look because wasn't he a trooper and an attorney himself. Was conceited of him to think this sheriff couldn't have also gone to law school like he had.

"So you do know a little about the law, good start to a career in law enforcement," Jody cuttingly shot back.

Travis put a hand out to block Wes advancing on the Sheriff even as he declared, "Out of a _professional_ curtsey, we won't press charges against you."

"Won't press charges, huh, so false charges is something you two like to stack up? Good to know," Jody goaded, wasn't about to let these two heartless idiots feel good about their version of upholding the law.

Pointing a finger at Jody, Wes began, "Listen here…"

But Jody cut him off. "No, you listen. I just convinced Sam to talk to you, tell you his side of things, so give him some time to cool down before you go in there and then don't screw things up by antagonizing him." Then before the troopers could form a comeback, she was storming for the door, had a mission to complete.

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"Winchesters sure know how to pick 'em," Jody quietly grumbled as she parked the car she had stolen in the ramshackle motel's potholed parking lot at room door number 11. She unhooked the wires that had kept the hotwired car running and sat there a moment rehashing Sam's plan.

1\. Steal a car a mile from the warehouse that no one would know when it went missing - _Check._

2\. Go to the fleabag motel he and Dean had stayed at with Dom, the scumbag hunter who set Dean up to be killed by his vampire girlfriend- _Check_

3\. Get Michele's clothing from room number 12 and put it in the stolen car's trunk along with whatever weapons in the room that weren't Sam or Dean's. Then gather up anything that would give proof that Michele & Dom were in the parts of Idaho where the murders were.

Though she had gotten better at B&E since learning about monsters, it still took her a little time to get the official cop lock-pick to click the tumblers and for her to get inside. She remembered to be quiet, didn't want Dom aware that someone was in the room next to the one he was tied up in. Opening up a bag with woman's clothing and undergarments, Jody hoped Sam was right, that Michele hadn't thrown out the clothing she wore from her other buffets.

" _Why wouldn't she get rid of the evidence?" she had challenged Sam, because she might still be a little wet behind the ears when it came to vampire hunting but human killers, that she knew something about._

 _But Sam had shaken his head confidently, "If Dean and I threw away all the clothing we got bloody, we'd need to hit the thrift shop every day. No, she'll have the clothing yet and the labs will pick up that there was blood on them, even Clorex can't get out all traces. When they compare the blood traces in Michele's clothes with her victims, they should get hits. "_

Picking up Michele's bag, Jody settled it by the front door, hoped Sam's theory was right and Michele wasn't a prima doma when it came to blood stained outfits.

Then Jody was set on figuring out which clothing bags were Dean or Sam's, which turned out to be an easy task: no plaid shirts in the bag's depths clearly meant she had Dom's bag. And the weapon's bags were just as easily determined since she had been on enough hunts with the Winchester boys to recognize their cache of weapons, not to mention their weapons were cleaned like factory issue and Dom and Michele's might have seen a cleaning this year.

Finding some proof to tie Dom and Michele to the other murder sites wasn't so easy. She scrunched up her face in disgust as she ruffled through Dom's dirty jeans' pockets, but it proved lucrative as she recovered a receipt for gas at a town just a few miles from the second murder in Idaho. Then in a stroke of genius, she snagged the pizza box from the trash, the one embossed with a pizzeria from Jefferson County the sight of the latest murder. Hauling her goodies to the stolen car, she casually threw the pizza box in the backseat and dumped the bags of clothing and weapons in the trunk. ' _Enough to fix your wagon, Dom'_ she congratulated herself before she straightened her uniform and hoped Dom wasn't observant enough to notice the patch on her arm said Sioux Falls instead of Goodling. Then she strode forward and knocked on door number twelve, initiating Sam's step #4.

4\. Impersonating the Goodling Sheriff, go in to room 11 and liberate Dom, tell him that there were two men found dead at the warehouse and they were tracing their steps back there. (When Jody had questioned Sam on why he wanted Dom to believe Michele had survived and they hadn't, she felt like a fool when Sam had patiently explained, "I don't want to take the chance that Dom decides to go after us for revenge for Michele's death. I'm safe here but Dean's not able to take care of himself. I'm not making him a target." And she couldn't have agreed with that more.)

So when no one called out in response to her knock on room door # 11, she announced herself, "Sheriff Staton of Goodling Police Department, open the door!" When that was met with silence she forewarned, "I'm coming in." And then she kicked in the door, swept her gun across the room's expansion, put on a surprised look at finding some beefy, shaved head guy tied and gagged in the room's only chair. Quickly crossing the room, she pulled the gag from Dom's mouth, questioned, "The person who tied you up, they around yet?"

With a voice dry from having had a towel stuck in it for hours, Dom croaked out, "No, they left. How'd you know I was in here?"

Moving around to untie Dom's hands, Jody spun her tale just like Sam told her to. "I didn't. We found two men murdered out in a warehouse on the other side of town and they had a key for this room." Stood up when she had freed Dom and came around to face the man as he came to his feet. "Do you know the men's names? We're trying to ID them but …their bodies are pretty mutilated."

"So they're dead?" Dom asked, doing a poor job of hiding his pleasure at that news, which Jody pretended to not notice. "I didn't know them, just met them yesterday. I didn't know what kinda crap they were into but the taller one got freaky on me and tied me up. I'm just glad he left me alive."

"Well, we'll need you to give your statement at the station," Jody notified him, saw the way Dom stiffened at that prospect but then her cellphone trilled. "Excuse me, I have to take this," she said, leaving the room and walking down the motel sidewalk a ways, waited until she was far enough away to be certain that her conversation wouldn't drift back to Dom before she answered, "Sheriff Mills."

"Sheriff, it's Cas…I called you to come to Goodling to assist Sam," Cas formally greeted, as if she would have forgotten his connection to her current law breaking scheme.

"I'm in town. Have you seen Dean? Is he Ok?" she cross-examined, hadn't wanted to show her apprehension for Dean's life in front of Sam but that didn't mean that anxiety wasn't coursing through her since Cas had called her.

Giving Dean an assessing look, Cas diagnosed, "I'm with him now and he's no longer in jeopardy of dying."

"Wow, aren't you clinically unreassuring. Can you do that in like normal people speech, like he's sitting up doing handstands or lying in a coma?"

The choices Jody offered only confused Cas. "I've never seen Dean do handstands but I would not advise him to attempt that at the moment and he's conscious, is in fact demanded the phone from me."

"Why didn't you say that to start with! Put him on," Jody insisted, waited a beat while holding her breath before Dean's so welcome baritone reached her ears.

Dean opened with an apology. "Jody, sorry you got dragged into this."

Jody couldn't hold back a smile at the proof that Dean was alive and well enough to sound almost like himself, a little tired and pained but still himself. "Hey, kiddo. How you doing? Sam's worried sick."

"I'm good," Dean reassured, held up a hand to forestall the protest Cas was opening his mouth to make against the truthfulness of his declaration.

"So rebar through your guts is code for being "good" these days?" Jody challenged in that motherly worried yet slightly scolding tone that Dean crumbled under like balsawood.

Dean sheepishly relented a little on his bravado statement. "Ah…is after said rebar is yanked out and a medical team and an angel get done patching you up."

"So you're really alright?" Jody quietly asked, her worry shining through without restraint this go around.

Worry that Dean wanted to assuage. "I'm hurting, will be sore, am on some good painkillers and have an angel hovering over me…but yeah, I'm going to be alright. What about Sam? What's his plan for getting out of there?"

Looking over her shoulder, Jody watched as Dom hotwired the stolen car and stomped on the gas, sent the car spitting gravel as he backed it up and sent it careening out of the parking lot. Effectively and unknowingly Dom had completed Sam's step #5: Give Dom the opening to slip out the door, hotwire the stolen car with all the incriminating evidence in it and hit the road'.

To Dean, Jody announced, "Sam's going to say Michele went serial killer and Dom called you and Sam in to stop her but then Dom changed his mind, decided to blame the murders on Sam. But when Michele took you hostage, Dom and Sam came to rescue you and Dom took her head and then split. I've just put a nice assortment of evidence in a stolen car that Dom just kindly liberated from me that should get a conviction in any court of law."

"That's my boy, always ten steps ahead of everyone else," Dean praised his little brother for his rock-solid plan. Then Dean undertoned, "Ah crap, here comes my doctor, gotta go. Hey Jody…thanks."

"I'd say anytime but that might induce you to make a habit of nearly dying and Sam a habit of nearly getting strapped to an electric chair, so how about, glad to do it this time but let's not make this a thing," Jody half teased, half implored earning her a light chuckle from Dean.

"Sounds like something we can agree to. Bye." As Dean ended the connection, Jody was still smiling, knew that caring about Sam and Dean came with a heavy worry price tag but it was all worth it when she knew they were going to be Ok, that they still had each other to watch the other's back and that was a winning force.

Turning to her police radio clipped to her shoulder, Jody called in the license plate number on Dom's getaway vehicle, gave his twenty and signed off before the operator could ask for her ID code. Then she went back into the room and started to wipe away any trace that Sam and Dean Winchester had been in either of the rooms. Sam hadn't asked her to do that but in for a penny, in for a pound. If she was going to risk her career, she might as well do it right and make sure the boys didn't have any loose ends hanging over their heads with the State Troopers or the town's LEOs, didn't have to fear staying put long enough for Dean to be roadworthy. And if it felt similar to cleaning up her little boy's room, stuffing tube socks and stinky wrinkled shirts into Sam and Dean's bags, she found it wasn't a painful comparison, was actually a healing one. Sometimes things did come full circle.

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Sam didn't show any reaction when Wes and Travis entered the room, but had to restrain himself when Wes caustically taunted, "So you have a sheriff in your back pocket."

"I have a sheriff who's my _friend_ ," Sam countered, still leaning back in the chair relaxed like he was the one doing the interrogating.

"Come on, Wes, let's not antagonize him," Travis advised under his breath to his partner, giving Sam's sheriff _friend_ credit for knowing how Sam would react if they continued to mishandle the situation. Wes hesitated a moment in indecision before he gave Travis a nod and then they both took a seat.

Travis took up the interview reins. "Your _friend_ convinced us to hear you out before we drop you in a cell without windows. So I say talk."

Inhaling, Sam put his upset and reluctance to talk on display before he broke his vow of silence, seemingly chose to break a relationship to save his own butt from going to jail. "Dean and I…we came to town to help a friend."

"Hopefully not the woman you beheaded," Wes snarked and at Travis' reprimanding look, he exhaled out a "Continue."

Sam made a show of shifting nervously in his chair. "A buddy we've had for years called us up, said…he was worried his girlfriend was doing some dark things."

"Dark things…drugs, stealing….prostitution?" Wes prompted.

Sam closed his mouth in a sign of indecision before he broke his muteness, "Murder." That got both State Troopers sitting up straighter in their chairs. "His girlfriend…she had been through some stuff.." At the Troopers' expectant look, he expounded, "Her sister was murdered when she was sixteen. And that…it got her believing some strange crap, doing drugs before she started going off hunting for her sister's murderer. And our buddy, he went along with her because it was harmless you know…she was harmless. Until a month ago when Dom called for our help, needed us to come meet up with him and Michele."

"So you came to Idaho…were in fact in the state when the other murders happened?" Wes cross- examined, remembered Sam's early claim of not being in Idaho during the other murders.

"Murders didn't start in Idaho…they started in Oklahoma. By the time we got there Dom and Michele had left but we saw…what Michele left behind." He gave a sick grimace. "What she did to the bodies…" he shook his head in horror.

"Michele, your buddy Don's girlfriend?" Travis asked for verification, beginning to write down the info that Sam was imparting.

"Yeah. Dean and I …we called Dom, told him to have Michele turn herself in. And if she wouldn't…he should go to the cops himself, get her stopped."

"But he didn't do that," Wes surmised and Sam shook his head.

"No and he warned me that if Dean and I got any ideas to turn her in…he'd get the cops after us. Tell the cops we did it."

"Convincing, all of this. Blaming it on a missing buddy for 'framing' you," Wes snorted.

"Well, maybe you have some other way to explain my fingerprints at the murder in Jefferson County Idaho when I only got into the state two days ago," Sam heatedly threw back, internally enjoyed the Troopers' shock at his knowledge of the frame up Dom had managed at the other crime scene. "Dom said he would do that, leave my or Dean's print there if we didn't back off."

"And you didn't back off?" Travis pressed.

Sam looked at Travis with disbelief, "Would you if you knew your friend was being dragged down into some bad crap?! Dom needed to get his head on straight, to get away from Michele."

"And how did you plan on doing that? Making him turn on his girl?" Wes asked with sharp lack of belief.

"Didn't really know until we tracked him down to the motel in this town, started telling him that Michele needed help, that if he loved her, he would see she got it."

"An intervention," Travis labeled.

"Yeah," Sam dejectedly agreed, his tone giving them a hint of how well that went.

"So how'd that intervention end up with your brother impaled? And I'm assuming Michele's the burnt body without a head?" Wes pressed, wasn't ready yet to swallow Sam's tale.

Sam rubbed his hands on the table, like he hated to think on those things. "Dean and I, we thought it better if Dom didn't track down Michele, so Dean went, found her in that warehouse. But she had already killed some more people there…kids and she freaked out when Dean arrived. They fought and Dean got hurt. But she….I guess there was enough goodness in her to not kill Dean. Instead, she called Dom, sent him a picture of Dean, hurt in the warehouse, told Dom to come and help Dean, that she was leaving. "

Sam exhaled, shook his head as he recalled, "But Dom, he told her not to leave, that he needed her, that he'd meet her there and they'd leave together."

"Bet that didn't set too well with you," Travis guessed.

"No! She hurt my brother, was a raging serial killer. I told Dom I would go alone and do whatever I had to do to save my brother and he wasn't going to stop me. But Dom…he said I couldn't go alone, that Michele…she would kill me if he didn't go there, talk her down. So we went together, parked away from the warehouse so she didn't know I was there. But then…Dom he stated his car on fire, called Michele, sent her a picture of the burning car, said the cops would see the smoke and be coming soon, that if she wanted to not be caught to come out to him and they would just leave together. But when…" Sam choked up here for emphasis, "but when Michele came out I went to tackle her but Dom…he killed her right in front of me, just ….took her head right off. And I…" Sam swallowed hard, pretended he was fighting back being sick. "It was awful."

"So Dom… he killed Michele. Where's he at now?" Wes demanded.

"He just..started rambling that it wasn't Michele, that he didn't kill her, that it wasn't her. When I went to calm him down, he took off running and I ran for the warehouse to find Dean. I don't….I don't know where he'd go. He still had things at the motel in town but I don't think he'd go back there." Let shame and horror reflect in his gaze, "I didn't want to turn on him, not after he killed Michele to save me, to save Dean but…if it's my freedom or his…I need to get out of here and see my brother. I need to make sure my brother's ok more than I want to protect Dom from actions he alone did."

"We'll check out your story…" Travis conceded and then he stood up, hesitated a moment before he met Sam's gaze. "I'm sorry we didn't tell you about your brother's condition earlier. I wanted to sweat answers out of you but using your brother's grave health condition was a crappy way of doing that."

"Yeah, it was," Sam shot back, wasn't ready to forgive and forget that merciless tactic.

"Yeah, ok," Travis mumbled before he followed his partner out of the interrogation room, decided it best to focus on the leads he had to follow up on and an overload of information to make sense of than his craptastic methods of interrogation.

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"One of the nurses thought she heard two voices carrying on a conversation in here," Doctor Conner greeted all smiles at the sight of his awake patient.

Handing Cas' phone back to him, Dean focused on his plan on bamboozling the doctor into convincing Cas he was ok to spring this zoo. "Don't sell Cas short, doc, he does a great ventriloquist act. So you here to give me a clean bill of health?"

"Ah, clean bill of health already might be a bit of stretch after what you've been through but let's see the miracle your brother's presence bestowed on you," Conner said. Focusing on Dean's chart, he didn't catch the surprised expression Dean shot Cas at being labeled brothers or the uncomfortable look on Cas' face at that fabrication or the doctor's on-the-money miracle innuendo. Then Conner was slipping between the two men, checking the readouts on the numerous machines around Dean…and then stopping and rechecking them.

Cas dropped his eyes to his shoes, felt awkward being there when his miracle was about to be discovered. The doctor's low key 'Huh" had Cas' head guiltily snapping up.

"Huh…is that…is that a sound of good news or bad?" Cas stammered, half trying to hide his own actions in healing Dean and half in worry about the damage he couldn't heal.

Distracted by his findings, Patrick checked the chart and compared the numbers again before finally looking up at his patient's brother's worried expression. "Ah, it's a sound of good news," before he turned his attention to Dean, "Your vitals are much improved, your coloring is better…I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth but I'm a little stunned at your turnaround."

Dean gave a closed mouth smile before bragging, "I'm a quick healer, always have been."

"Ookkaayy," the doctor drawled, not buying that for a second but then he turned to Cas, "Can you leave us for a little while? I want to examine your brother's wound and maybe run him down for some tests."

"It's best if I stay with Dean," Cas opposed, using his angel-knows-best tone.

Dean wanted to groan, anyone who thought having an angel as a bodyguard wasn't going to do social damage to your reputation had apparently never had Cas fulfilling that post. "Cas, seriously, I'm ok. Go get some coffee…."

"But I shouldn't leave you..…." Cas protested, fear rising in him at just the thought of leaving Dean without his protection, as vulnerable and as weak and in pain as he currently was.

Dean felt his face flush with embarrassment, said to the doc, "Big brothers, they embarrass you any chance they get," before he pierced Cas with a stern commanding look even though his tone was light, "Cas, buddy, I'm good with the doc. I'll swear to Sam that you never left my side."

"But that would be a lie…." And Cas had told enough lies lately, about how he got his grace back, about Metatron still being locked in Heaven's prison, about his personal search for a cure for the Mark.

"Cas, come on!" Dean lowly hissed, "Give me a break here." At Dean's obvious frustration with him, Cas' face fell a little and he disheartenedly agreed, "I'll be in the cafeteria getting coffee," before he started for the door, didn't heed Dean's "Cas…don't…I didn't mean…" as he left his friend as he asked him to.

' _Great, you have such a wonderful way of thanking people for saving your life, for putting up with all your bullcrap and that's without the added bonus of the Mark_ ,' Dean railed at himself at Cas' kicked-puppy departure. He startled as the doctor pulled his gown down to see his side, had to fist his hands to not strike out as the doctor's albeit gently prodding in the wound sent spikes of pain through him. Had to grit his teeth to bite back the words that he knew weren't his…well, not all his. Were the Mark's snarling comeback to the pain, to Cas' loyalty and worry.

' _The angel freed you from hell and now you're supposed to be indebted to him for the rest of your life?! No matter how many times he's hurt you, betrayed you? You should be relieved he walked away, wasn't there patronizing you, treating you like you needed him, were too weak to survive on your own.'_

"No!" Dean breathed out, didn't know he said it aloud until the doctor's eyes came up to meet his with a look of apology as he pulled his touch from Dean's wound.

"Sorry for the rough handling, had to gauge the healing process. The wound is clear and the stitches are good but there's still a risk of infection and the laceration on your colon is a concern. Since your vitals have spiked on the side of good, I'm hoping to get similar good news with the MRI results," Dr. Conner explained.

"Ah, sure…" Dean numbly agreed to whatever rambling the doctor had just done, wished his health was the only thing he had to worry about, that Sam wasn't in jail right then, that he didn't just harshly brush off Cas' friendship and that the Mark would shut the heck up for a friggin' minute or five. On the scheme of things, him living to see another day, it wasn't the great news the doc thought it was, not if it meant another day he might succumb to the Mark, might hurt Sam or Cas or Jody or someone else he loved, not when it meant another day struggling to not see black eyes in his reflection. Was another chance for him to turn Sam's faith in him to ash. And out of all his failures, that was the one that he didn't want to repeat, didn't see how he could live with himself if he did. _'You'll live because Sam wants you to, because he'll forgive you anything …but you giving up. You heard him in the warehouse, he's ok if you are so suck it up and decide to be ok.'_

" **So I'm gonna be a good man, gonna do the best I can  
Though I'm a shell of the man that I once was  
And if I find forgiveness in the eyes of God  
It will be hard won, I assure you"  
**

"I'll get a nurse to take you down for the MRI test in a few minutes," the doctor was saying and Dean came back to the conversation in time to nod as the doctor left the room. He didn't track the minutes as they passed before a nurse was in his room, all smiles like there was something worth smiling about. He managed to grunt at her cheerfulness but before she could unlock his bed to steer him down to the second floor, a visitor slipped into the room.

"Oh crap," Dean hissed under his breath as he shifted himself upright against the pillows, tried to make a plan in his head how to handle the newest hiccup in his plan to not die. "Dom, thought you'd bring flowers, candy at least."

" **I barely even noticed how the fibers did tear away  
From the fabric of my being**

 **Nobody knows it like you do babe, the lengths we will go**

 **To make our peace with God"****

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TBC

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**The song in this chapter is Shovels & Rope's "The Devil is All Around."

Thanks for your generously kind words on last chapter and for being patient with me as I struggled to get this update out. I had a, excuse the pun, "devil" of a time figuring out how to start to get Sam freed of the charges. Serves me right for putting our boys in untenable positions without already planning their escape, huh?

I figure there's another chapter or two to this story. Hope you'll continue to tune in.

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.


	5. Chapter 5: I'm Permanent

Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, or the David Cook song, or Common Law nor am I making any profit from this story.

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Chapter Five: I'm Permanent

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If Dean had any doubts about how weak he currently was, they were shattered when Dom's meaty paws slapped away his flying fist and yanked him out of the bed by his arm like he was a fifty pound grade-schooler. Toppling over the chair in the room to collide painful with the floor, he lay gasping for breath around the agony spiking from his side, had a random thought that he was glad it was just an IV and not a catheter he was just brutally discounted from.

Grabbing Dean's clothing from the closet, Dom threw them down into Dean's face. "Get dressed or I'll get that nurse back in the room and you can watch me take my anger out on her."

Not trusting Dom's threat to be hollow, Dean growled, "Alright! Alright! This doesn't involve anyone but us." Bracing his back against the leg of the overturned chair, he began drawing on his jeans. Found it a study in pain management to pull the black t-shirt over his head and Dean suspected that the hole and dark blood stain in the fabric wouldn't even draw attention in this era of ripped jeans and grunge being the new chic.

When Dom crouched down to be eye level with him, Dean refused to shirk back in fear.

Pulling his gun out of an interior pocket of his coat, Dom leveled the .45 Colt at Dean's chest. And the fact that Winchester looked so freaking calm about it, gave him some amused smirk, it pissed him off even more than he already was. But letting Dean see that he was getting to him was no way to win this fight. So he returned Dean's unruffled expression with one of his own. "You wanna be the hero you always claim to be? You wanna save people? You get on your feet right now and walk out of here without making a fuss and I won't hurt anyone but you…Well, you and your brother," he amended, felt vindicated when he saw a crack in Dean's cool façade at the threat to his little brother.

"Leave Sam outta this. I killed Michele," Dean snarled, didn't know if he had great odds against coming out on top against Dom but wanted his fellow hunter's hatred to remain fixed on him, to not wander to Sam for even an instant

But Dom's face shaded with incredulousness. "While pinned to the warehouse floor?!" Leaning closer, he coiled his hand around Dean's throat.

Dean felt a moment of déjà vu of when Michele had done the same thing, pissed him off that both hunters had the knack of cramping his ability to draw in breath. Though on a plus side, Dom didn't have claws to sink into his neck. "What can I say, I'm amazing," he bragged, though the wheezy hoarseness of his voice took some of the sharp edge off his claim.

"No, Dean, you're just a piss poor liar," Dom retorted coldly. "I know your brother killed Michele. Bad news for you is, I think turnaround's fair play. Let's see how your brother enjoys watching me kill you right in front of him. I think I'll let that pain sink in, give his guilt time to rip him apart. Take my time killing him." Then Dom commanded, "Now on your feet!" When Dean moved too slowly for his liking, he assisted that process by grabbing Dean's arm and tugging the wounded man off the ground.

Not that he wasn't grateful for Dom's aid, (and he really wasn't), but Dean didn't find standing up to be all that rewarding. Straightaway he bent over and pressed a hand to his wound to try and assuage the agony shooting through his side, had to throw a hand out to the wall to steady himself as lightheadedness joined his body's physical assault on him.

Uninterested in letting Dean adjust to the change in attitude, Dom mercilessly jammed the barrel of his gun in Dean's wounded side, growled in the man's ear, "She was better than any of us and you and your brother killed her."

From his bowed position, Dean shot a condemning glare at the incompetent hunter. "No, Dom, _you_ killed Michele when you let her get turned into a vamp." And though he braced himself for Dom's predictable reaction, the fist slamming into his stomach still managed to drop him to his knees. Curled over in agony on the floor, head nearly resting on the ground, teeth gritted to make sure the cry of pain never escaped his throat, Dean wasn't up to _caring_ that the barrel of Dom's gun was pressed to the back of his skull. But he could feel the black boil of rage surging in him, longed to rip Dom's throat out with his bare hands. Felt a momentary appreciativeness that he was hurt too badly to act on the Mark's murderous whispers.

But Dean realized it wasn't just Dom's murder that the Mark had in mind, it was his own too. There was a disturbing murmuring in his head that he should _want_ Dom to kill him, that there was a world of freedom waiting for him if he did, a world without pain, a world without guilt, a world that he could rule…like he had in Hell and Purgatory. That if he just admitted he had loved being a demon, that he had found that it fit him, he wouldn't have to fight who he was anymore, didn't have to be restricted by morals, wouldn't be ripped apart by the need to be loved, could stop being ashamed of the deep seated evil inside of him and instead, let it loose, be free to show on the outside what he was on the inside. Dark Dark Dark.

Dean didn't think it was his imagination that he felt a wave of power surge through him at the thought of giving in, that his pain seemed to lessen, that his muscles felt stronger, that his head cleared, knew the words poised on his lips would push Dom into pulling the trigger and setting him on his path. All he had to do was open his mouth… ' _And abandon Sam._ ' Because that's what he would be doing if he listened to the Mark, let himself die here, become a Knight of Hell again: He would be deserting his brother. ' _I'd be forcing him to either be my jailer or my killer. Or worse yet, Sam will become one of_ _my_ _victims.'_

And he wouldn't hold that hammer for a second time, swing it for his brother's skull, never wanted to feel all over again that spark of regret at failing to take his own brother's life. So he crammed down the Mark's scripted dialogue, spoke words that were his own, spoken more for Sam's sake than his own. "Gun fire in here might make it a little tricky for you to get out of the hospital," he counselled Dom as he sat back on his hunches, didn't wince as the gun barrel pressed harder into the back of his head. But Dean couldn't help tagging on, "Especially for a hunter with your less than awesome skills," because, come on, he had to enjoy himself a little bit. Then he waited, hoped Dom wasn't so devastated by Michele's death that he didn't mind going out in a blaze of glory running from a hundred cops surrounding the hospital. He had his answer when Dom roughly grabbed him by the arm, pulled him again to his feet and shoved him toward the closed room door.

Not entirely sure how he was going to sell it to the nurses that he was A OK to leave, Dean, nevertheless, put on his game face and opened the door. To his relief, no nurses were at their station. So with Dom at his back, his gun digging into his spine, Dean started to walk down the hallway. Only got three steps before Dom grabbed the back of his t-shirt and spun him to the right.

"Elevators are to the right, dipwad," Dom lowly snarled, giving Dean a prod in his lower back to keep moving.

Set on his new path, Dean snarked back, "Well, excuse me. I was unconscious when they wheeled me in here, didn't get the 'your exits are here' speech by the flight attendant." All the while, he concentrated on keeping his legs from crumbling under him, decided it was a safer bet to navigate the middle of the tilting hallway he was traversing.

"Always with the smart comebacks, huh, Dean. Bet you weren't laughing when Michele was going to make you her lunch, when you were stuck like a pig on that rebar, bleeding out. Were just wetting your pants, wishing against hope that your little brother would come save you from the big bad monster," Dom harshly spat in Dean's ear, shoving him around the corner, glad the bank of elevators were finally in sight. "You're nothing without your brother."

"You finally got one thing right…I am nothing without my brother," Dean candidly agreed, hoped he got a chance to tell Sam that one day. As it was, he was almost as glad as Dom to see the elevators, to know, at least, that they were leaving this floor of the hospital without casualties. But then that bad luck thing of his kicked in, had Dr. Conner turning the corner at that very moment, his eyes going wide at seeing his seriously wounded patient, not only upright, but heading for the elevators, seemingly intent on leaving.

Unknowingly putting his life on the line, the doctor stepped in front of Dean, barred his entrance to the elevator. "Whoa, whoa. No way should you be up and no way am I signing your release papers."

Dean gave a fake smile he hoped the doctor believed. "Ah, family emergency, doc. Gotta get back home, pronto. But thanks for all your help patching me up. My local MD will take over my recovery from here."

But the doctor's eyes were skipping from Dean to Dom, as if he was sensing something was rotten in the state of Denmark. ' _Or, if he mistook Dom for Sam, he's trying to see the family resemblance between us,_ ' and that thought almost made Dean laugh.

"I….I'm not comfortable with you leaving without me at least prescribing you some antibiotics and painkillers," the doctor stalled, not moving from his stanch position in front of the elevator, definitely settling on the notion that something was wrong with the situation before him.

Sensing Dom's raising anger at his back and not putting it past the hunter to simply shoot the doctor, Dean quietly muttered, "Doc, don't take this personally…" before he unleashed his right hook on the doctor, felt the Mark's glee at his outburst of violence. Then the doctor was falling and Dean seemed likely to follow suit, his equilibrium forfeited for the tactic to save the doctor. But Dom derailed his path to the hallway floor by shoving him into the opening elevator doors. Dean instead landed in a graceless heap on the elevator floor.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNS

His head snapping up when the interrogation room door abruptly opened, Sam wasn't expecting a county uniformed officer to enter rattling keys, felt his stomach drop at the harsh reality that he was being moved to a cell, that his get-out-of-jail-free venture had failed. That he wasn't going to see Dean, wasn't going to be at his brother's side when Dean woke up, with green eyes not black, in the ICU, in pain. Wasn't going to be there to do anything and everything to ensure the Mark didn't take over his brother, that all his sneaking around behind Dean's back with the Book of the Damned and Rowena was for nothing. He wasn't getting a cure for the Mark, not locked away in prison, wasn't even going to be around to bind Dean to the bunker if the worst happened again. Dean would be on his own, fighting the Mark, drowning in despair and guilt, his goodness slowly being suffocated by evil.

' _I have to be with Dean, I have to be there for him. I have to save him this time. Not fail like all the times in the past.'_ Tensing as the officer approached, Sam knew what he had to do, that he had wasted enough time here, being forced apart from Dean, that no one was keeping him from his brother, not for a minute more, surely not for years.

So as the officer unlocked the cuff anchoring him to the table, Sam fisted his free hand, almost started his windup for his infamous right roundhouse when the officer announced, "You're free to go." Stunned, Sam barely noticed when he was wholly free of the cuffs, snapped out of his stupor enough to grab the officer's arm before he could walk away. "Did you bring in Dom? Did he confess?" he insistently interrogated, hated that his gut was screaming at him not to trust this good news, that things didn't usually turn out to be this easy for them.

"Patrol cornered him but he fled the scene, assaulted the officers in the process. I guess the Troopers think his guilt is now a foregone conclusion because they authorized me to set you loose," the officer supplied, pulling his arm from Sam's bruising grip.

"Wait, he fled the scene? Did they..did the officers tell him what they were arresting him for?" a bad feeling settling in Sam's gut.

"Strange you should ask. They said for murdering his girlfriend and he freaked, went all wild on them, busted one officer's nose and broke another's leg, stole the cop car, had the balls to call into dispatch to get a twenty on you."

"A twenty on me….. what about on my brother?" Sam demanded breathless, felt an onset of a panic attack at the idea of Dom going after a vulnerable, maybe still comatose Dean.

"Your brother? Who's your brother?" the officer asked, clueless to the intricacies of the case.

Not willing to waste any more time, Sam shoved his way past the officer and exited the police station at a run.

" **And everything, it will surely change even if I tell you I won't go away today**

 **Will you think that you're all alone**

 **When no one's there to hold your hand?**

 **And all you know seems so far away and everything is temporary rest your head**

 **I'm permanent "**

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Knowing Dean's enjoyment of pie and hoping the gift bought him a little forgiveness from his friend, Cas was pulling the takeout container from his trench coat pocket as he entered Dean's hospital room but he came up short when he found the room empty, the bedsheets on the floor and the chair overturned. Thoughtlessly dropping the pie, he rushed to the nurse's station, leaned over the counter and demanded, "Where's Dean?" At the nurse's stupor, he pointed to Dean's room, his voice rising with his worry. "The man in that room, he's not there and the chair is overturned."

"Overturned… I don't know.." the nurse stammered in confusion before an older nurse who Cas had met earlier approached, supplied to Cas, "I was going to take him down to have an MRI when he had a visitor. Your brother said it was his insurance agent, needed to talk to him about what procedures were covered by his policy before he got the MRI..but…he didn't look like any insurance agent I ever met…more like a loan shark's henchman in one of those mafia movies."

"Tattoos, shaved head…muscles?" Cas listed the characteristics that Sam had once used to describe Dom. He was running down the hallway before the nurse finished nodding her head, didn't waste time calling an elevator but burst through the stairway door and started taking the stairs two at a time. Suddenly, he truly missed his ability to simply wish himself from place to place without any physical effort, especially now when the situation was dire, when every second counted, when his arriving late could mean the loss of Dean's life, of Dean's very _soul_.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

As the elevator began its descent, Dom kicked Dean in the chest, his version of an 'up and at 'em' goad for Dean to get to his feet. "Up, Winchester. Show me how tough you are."

"I'm tough…just having an off day," Dean wheezed, threw a hand up to wrap around the elevator railing and used it to lever himself off the floor. But his work was almost undone when the elevator jerked a little as it settled on the main floor, forced Dean to lock his legs, brace his back against the wall of the elevator and white knuckle his grip on the railing. Then the doors were opening and Dom was using the gun as a prodding rod in his side again.

And as much as Dean wanted to give into his body's idea of blacking out, the busy hospital lobby made that option a no –go, not if he didn't want Dom to hurt more people. So he told his body to stop whining and he continued to put one foot in front of the other, suspected that he was doing a bit of a drunken stumble when a few people in the lobby gave him a suspicious look. Then the electronic doors to the outside world opened and a gust of wind blew into his face, gave him more of the oxygen his lungs were straining for. Dom apparently wasn't as much of a nature lover because he gave Dean a shove forward even as he kept a fist full of Dean's shirt to make sure the man didn't escape his sphere of control.

Dean's head was down, his eyes focused on the curb he was supposed to navigate without tripping, was probably why he ended up hearing Sam's voice before he saw him.

"Dom, let him go!" Sam harshly commanded, slowing his run until he came to a halt fifty feet from his brother and Dom. His jaw clenching in fury as Dom wrapped his arm around Dean's waist, roughly cinched his hostage tighter into his hold. Sam felt sick when a groan of pain escaped Dean's Fort Knox like defenses and his brother's face blanched further than it already was at the new abuse to his wounded side.

Pressing the barrel of his gun under Dean's chin, Dom taunted as if he was amused by Sam's demand, "Let him go …or what?" He let that hang in the air between them for a moment before he pointed out, "You don't have anyone that I care about to trade for his life, you took that last person away from me. Now I'm going to return the favor," his finger applying more pressure to the trigger, the gun barrel digging even more painfully under Dean's chin, forcing Dean to raise his head to compensate.

"Shoot him, Sam," Dean unemotionally instructed, his voice a little off due to the gun under his chin and yeah…the pain and weakness but Sam would get the point. Meeting his brother's eyes, he said again, "Shoot him." But his eyes narrowed when, instead of producing a gun, a chagrinned expression appeared on his brother's features.

"I don't…I don't have a gun," Sam uncomfortably confessed to his brother, didn't give a crap that he was giving Dom an advantage. This was between him and Dean at the moment. ' _About my ineptitude,_ ' he bitterly categorized before letting out a silent string of curses at his helplessness.

"You…you what?" Dean stammered, angry reprimand growing in his tone, eyes searing into Sam, not because his brother wasn't able to free him from Dom but because how the heck did Sam expect to protect _himself_ from Dom without a weapon.

His brother's censure had Sam spiritedly defending himself. "I just came straight from jail, Dean! Don't know if you know this or not but they don't let you keep your weapons when you go there. And I didn't think I had time to get the Impala out of impound, find my .45 and _then_ come see if Dom thought he might like to kill you."

Dom gave a dark chuckle, settling Dean closer to him, "I like this, you being pissed at each other 'stead of all that fake brotherly concern." He said lowly by Dean's ear, "That you'll go out with little bro all mad at you, I'm enjoying that, a lot. Least Michele and I went out on good terms."

Sam gave a scoffing snort, "Good terms? She wasn't going to trade you for Dean. Only agreed when I threatened her niece." Looking to Dean, Sam asked curiously, like they were engaged in a round of polite chit chat, "And Dean…I forget, did she ask for proof of life for him? I remember asking for proof that you were alive but I'm a little hazy…"

"Ah..that would be a no. No proof of life required," Dean supplied merrily before he gave a fake but goading chuckle, and tilted his head back to see Dom's profile. "All the crap about living happily ever after vampire style …that was just so you didn't waste her when she went vamp on you. She was gonna ditch you from the start, was content with her new fanged family but when I took them out…all she had left was you, she had to _settle_ for you. Yeah, her and I had a great little chat while she decided if she wanted to eat me or turn me. Guess you weren't man enough for her, wanted me to be her forever-after dude."

"Shut your mouth!" Dom thundered. Forgetting about Sam in his rage, and blinded by the need to inflict pain on Dean, he yanked the gun from under Dean's chin, brought the butt down onto the side of Dean's head.

And Sam wasn't going to miss the opportunity Dean had made for him, was going to tackle Dom and Dean…when another pair of voices entered the scene.

"Hold it right there!" Wes shouted, gun pointed at Dom's head as he and Travis joined the hostage negotiation.

Sam cursed viciously as the gun was now back under his brother's chin, his window to take out Dom having vanished right before his eyes.

Dean matched Sam curse for curse under his breath before he eyed up the newcomers. "Great, Hansel and Gretel are here. Finally followed the bread crumbs. That'll be impressive…if you weren't like two days too late."

Ignoring the hostage's strange hostility toward _them_ , Travis directed at Dom, "Put your weapon down!"

"No, not happening," Dom drawled, his eyes leaving the cops and going back to Sam. "This morning I said that I was glad my life wasn't in your hands…well, now it's your brother's life in your hands. So what are you going to do, Sam? What are you willing to do to save him?"

"You better _pray_ you never have to find out," Sam menacingly replied, his face a mask of unholy resolve, giving Dom a taste of the lines he would cross to keep Dean safe. Sam didn't dare look at Dean, afraid Dean would see it on his face, the truths he had been keeping from him, that his brother would somehow guess how far he would go, what he had done already to try and save him: not burning the book of the damned, asking for Rowena's help, springing Metatron from heaven's jail.

Wes tried to be the voice of reason. "Everybody just calm down. No one needs to get hurt."

"Get hurt?!" Dom incredulously repeated before he snarled, "They killed Michele!" taking out some of his fury on Dean by landing another blow to his wounded side.

At Dean's cry of pain, Sam almost charged in blind rage, would have if he knew Dom wasn't a hairsbreadth away from pulling the trigger. Left with no physical offensive moves, Sam resorted to a verbal assault. "Dean didn't kill her, I did. Me…the guy you were supposed to keep sidelined. That's all she trusted you with…keeping me occupied and you couldn't even do that right," he railed, gradually stepping closer to Dean and Dom as he talked. "You're the weak link in all this, you're the reason your girl's dead." Halting when Dom took notice of his closeness and yanked Dean back a few steps, Sam threw down his challenge. "So if you have the guts to avenge her, I'm the one you need to take out," raising his arms to his sides, making himself a target, goading Dom into exchanging the focus of his hate from Dean to him.

But Dom barked out a laugh at Sam's suggestion, dug the gun barrel harder into Dean's chin. "And what? Let Dean go?! Don't you get it yet, Sam?! He's the one I want dead most of all. All this time I was afraid that something was going on between him and Michele and now I learn that Michele was thinking of turning _him_ into a vampire. That I wasn't good enough for her."

Sam shot Dean a pissed look for having put that thought into Dom's head. Dean gave a little shrug of apology for satisfying his need to verbally strike out at Dom earlier, a deed that was now making things harder for Sam. Changing tactics, Sam countered, "She thought Dean was a jerk. She was never gonna keep him alive. Was just going to turn him as a punishment to Dean, to me."

"No, the kicker is, Sam, that Michele didn't want you hurt by our plan and you're the one that killed her. She thought you were a hapless victim to hero worshiping your brother, that you were only in this life because your brother was. She didn't even know that I was framing you up for the murders," Dom enlightened his audience, enjoyed the stunned expressions that took over both Winchester's features at Michele's insight into their brotherly bond.

"Didn't want me _hurt_?! She was gonna kill _my brother_?!" Sam savagely hurled back, knew by too much firsthand experience that there wasn't anything that would hurt him more than losing Dean.

"In her mind, she was freeing you from Dean's hold," Dom explained, relished seeing the flicker of emotional pain in Dean's face before the other hunter could stifle his reaction. "Dean's got you so convinced that you can't make it on your own. Michele found that pitiable. Me, I just think you're a gutless wonder who can't stand up to your big brother. But I'm about to give you your freedom." Then he hissed in Dean's ear, "Any last orders for your brother, Dean?"

Dean's eyes held Sam's, for all the things he wanted to tell Sam, he didn't know which should be the last this side of being a demon again. "Sam, I…

But Sam decisively talked over Dean, his words not for his brother but for Dom. "Did you want your freedom from Michele? As much as she gave you direction, purpose, hope, loved you…she kept you in this life when you would have left it long ago." At the subtle flinch in Dom's features that spoke of a direct hit, Sam said, "Yeah, I sensed that…she probably did too. But she didn't let you go. Did you hate her for that?"

Without waiting to see the reaction his words had on Dom, Sam shifted his look to his brother, hated that Dean's eyes reflected sorrow, like Dean didn't know that Sam wasn't condemning him for doing that all but was grateful. "Did you hate her for loving you enough to fight with everything she had to keep you both alive? For knowing you better than you knew yourself, for realizing that this life….it's the only one that could fill the void in you. You don't walk away from someone that knows the real you and still sees something redeemable there, a goodness that they do all in their power to keep alive inside of you." Watching as Dean's sorrow turned to surprise as his brother understood his words were for him, Sam turned his focus back to Dom.

"Even when Michele turned, you still thought she was more righteous than you were," Sam surmised, didn't need an outward show from Dom to know he was right. Sam understood that feeling only too well because when Dean was a demon, it was him who sacrificed a human life to try and get his brother back.

Dean joined Sam's tactics, "But she wasn't in the right, Dom," his eyes on Sam, knowing that Sam was still taking his accusation flung at him while he was tied up in the bunker all black eyed as truth, thought that he condemned Sam for Lester's death when it was his hand that killed him, was Lester's decision to barter his soul away. Then he turned his head, met Dom's eyes. "She had to be stopped….just like that thing that killed your best friend had to be stopped. When they take human lives without remorse, someone has to stop them. Hunters have to stop them. That's what Sam did today. He did what you couldn't do. And hey, I get it. I do. The love you have for someone doesn't just vanish, even when that person's goodness does."

"She still had goodness in her! She still loved me!" Dom growled, hated the doubt of that conviction that was growing inside of him, that the Winchesters words were creating. And he wasn't going to listen anymore, was going to shut them up. Would silence Dean first and, if he was quick enough, then Sam. Wouldn't let them take away the only thing he had left of Michele: his belief in her love for him.

Suddenly Sam read Dom's resolve and his eyes widened in fear, knew Dom was about to make his move, was about to shoot his brother. And if Dom did that, if he killed Dean, Sam would have to face his brother as a demon or….make sure Dean simply stayed dead. Knowing that he couldn't bear either of those outcomes, Sam abandoned all tactics and, some would say all common sense, and ran straight for Dom.

At Sam's kamikaze approach, Dom knew he had to change tactics, had to kill Sam before turning the gun on Dean. Ripping the gun from under Dean's chin, he sighted it onto the charging Winchester, his finger squeezing the trigger.

And though he managed to give a weak shove to Dom's gun hand in the hopes of throwing off the other hunter's aim, Dean knew his efforts were in vain, weren't good enough, that the bullet, when it erupted from the gun, would unerringly hit Sam, would deliver a killing blow. "NO!" Dean screamed, planned to use the last of his strength to try and body slam Dom but Dom was already countering his intent, dug his fingers into his wound, sending a tsunami of agony that whited out his vision, had his legs crumbling under him.

Sam knew he wasn't going to be fast enough, that the Troopers didn't have a clear shot at Dom, not unless they didn't mind killing Dean, that Dom would pull the trigger before he could reach him. And it didn't change Sam's decision, didn't cause him to relent on his charge. He wasn't going to just quit on Dean, instead vowed with his last breath to save his brother. Even as Sam ran forward, all the while he expected to hear a gunshot, to feel a burning pain in his chest at any second…wasn't prepared to watch Dom surprisingly drop his gun and his hold on Dean, grab his head and sink to his knees with a cry of pain.

Not bothering to figure out the whys of what was happening, Sam finished his charge, tackled Dom to the ground and delivered a right cross, followed by a left. Didn't care that Dom's blood was coating his hand as he rained down another blow and another. Then he was being bodily pulled off Dom by Travis, numbly watched as Wes rolled the mostly unconscious Dom until his back and handcuffed him.

Jerking out of Travis's hold the next moment, Sam didn't go after Dom again as the Trooper feared but instead dropped down to kneel beside his brother, who was struggling to slip an elbow under his weight to lever himself upright. Latching onto Dean's elbow, Sam, instead of aiding Dean in his efforts to sit up, slid his other hand behind his brother's back and levered Dean back down to lie full out on the ground. Could tell by the way Dean was blinking up at him that his brother was fighting hard to not pass out.

"Hey, hey, you with me?" Dean heard Sam beckon from a distance and it took a herculean mental struggle to staff off unconsciousness but Sam's tone going all panicky, "Dean! Dean, don't pass out on me!" was like a jolt of adrenaline, had Dean's eyes going wide and he drew in a deep breath that brought back some clarity to his foggy brain. He met Sam's eyes with stunned confusion and overwhelming relief: they were both alive, by some miracle. Then the miracle joined them.

"Dean, are you alright?" Cas anxiously asked, coming to a crouch by Dean's other side, his hand falling on Dean's shoulder, reassured by the physical connection to his best friend.

Instead of answering, Dean asked a question of his own, "Your work?" eyes tracking to Dom, who was being roughly pulled off the ground by the Troopers.

Cas gave a non-bragging shrug. "I didn't want to do anything too unexplainable in front of all these witnesses."

"Right, unexplainable," Sam bitterly scoffed because they had passed that gate a while back. "We just talked about vampires in front of the Troopers and, of yeah, I confessed to killing Michele." Pissed at himself for the lapse, for not modify his speech, and yet the little voice in his head railed at his own rebuke, ' _Excuse me for being more worried Dom would put a bullet in my brother's head than what some cops overheard.'_

Wearing his determined angel face, Cas abruptly said, "Wait here," before he stood up and went to the troopers. Then in a move Dean was all too familiar with, Cas put his fingers on each cop's forehead. Whatever Cas said after that, Dean and Sam couldn't hear but then Cas was dropping his fingers and giving a civil nod to the officers, who simply blinked then continued hauling off their suspect to jail.

When Cas rejoined their twosome, Sam asked, jerking his head toward the departing Troopers, "What was that about?"

"I wiped their memories of your confession of killing Michele and any mention of vampires. As far as they are considered, you two are innocent of all wrong doing," Cas announced like it was nothing, eyes on Dean, concerned about the renewed pain he felt pouring off his friend. But sensing the brothers' silence meant something other than their humble gratitude, he looked up and, for a moment, didn't understand the twin stunned looks his action invoked from the Winchesters until he surmised their unspoken question. "You're wondering why I didn't erase the police officers memories when I arrived in town and have Sam released from jail right then."

"Ah..yeah, kinda," Sam hedged, didn't want to lay blame on Cas, especially since he had just saved the day, but the question seemed valid.

Cas gave a sigh of discontentment. "While my grace is back, it's not at the strength it once was. I would not have been able to change all the people's memories who knew you were arrested, Sam."

"No, hey, we get that," Sam readily accepted and dismissed any regret Cas had for not being able to convert a whole town into thinking he hadn't been found in a warehouse splattered with blood with a headless corpse outside and blood trails inside. "Getting my confession wiped from the two Troopers' memories right now, getting us to look innocent, that's good enough.

Dean chose that opening to chime in. "Yeah, us innocent…wow. Quite the feat. Maybe you should be my attorney next time I'm on trial, Cas." Dean shot a smirk to his brother, waiting for his objection… that came almost instantaneously.

"Shut up, Dean," Sam laughingly retorted even as Cas was trying to talk his way out of taking up Dean's suggestion.

"Dean, I don't think I understand the intricacies of the law to properly…"

"He was kidding, Cas," Sam explained, enjoyed the flash of relief in the angel's eyes. Then, reaching out, Sam squeezed Cas's shoulder. "Thanks for saving the day."

But instead of basking in Sam's gratitude, Cas' face fell and was marked with shame. "It was my job to keep Dean safe, to stay with him and I didn't do that. I am sorry, Sam."

Dean immediately jumped into the conversation to defuse any blame to Cas. "No, I sent you for coffee, Cas. You wanted to stay, alright." Knowing it wasn't just Cas he had to convince, Dean looked to Sam, explained so his brother understood the fault wasn't with Cas, "Seriously, he got all authoritative and then whinny in front of the doctor. Really embarrassing. So he wanted to stay but I made him leave, Sam."

"But Sam trusted me to make sure nothing happened to you…" Cas interjected as the brothers' gazes remained locked on each other and he began to fear Sam wouldn't forgive him this mistake. However, there wasn't blame but a twinkle of mischief in Sam's expression when he returned his attention to him.

"Cas, that wasn't a fair request. I mean, Dean's like _impossible_ to keep out of trouble. It's not your fault he rubs people the wrong way and they want to track him down and rearrange his face," Sam allowed, fighting back a smile.

And right on time, Dean complained, "Hey! Injured guy here. Can you save your bashing until I'm at least coherent enough to think up a sparkling comeback."

"Sparkling comebacks like you used with Dom, yeah, that was helpful," Sam drawled in reprimand, because Dean pushing Dom's buttons, making the musclebound hunter want to kill him on the spot, so wasn't something Sam wanted to forgive his brother for, certainly wouldn't forget for a while.

"What? I wasn't just gonna take his crap," Dean grumbled. It was bad enough he was the hostage in the situation, the friggin' damsel in distress…again. Friggin' town sucked as far as he was concerned and he couldn't wait to put it in the Impala's rearview mirrors.

"Course you couldn't," Sam mildly conceded, because that was Dean just being Dean, fighting verbally if he couldn't fight physically, never giving up… and Sam had so missed seeing that fire in his brother, it was a welcome sight. Well, now that he knew Dean's smart mouth hadn't gotten Dean dead it was a welcome sight. And as if he needed to reassure himself Dean was alive and well in his hold, he began scanning his brother and tallying up his wounded: bruises on his paper white face, purple and green bruising and small puncture wounds on his neck courtesy of Michele's vamp claws, a small trickle of blood running from a cut on the right side of his forehead and worst of all, the hole in the t-shirt showing where the rebar had impaled his brother…a hole that was even now being rimmed in a dark liquid. "Oh crap, Dean, you're bleeding…." Found himself uncertain if he dared press on the wound to staunch the blood and risk breaking any additional stitches.

Sam's statement had Dean dropping his head down to look at his side. "Yeah, kinda felt the stitches go." Lightly pressing his hand over the wound to try and minimize the pain, which didn't work, he lifted his hand, grimaced at the blood now tacky against his palm. And he really didn't want to wipe it on his jeans because the blood stains already there were gonna be a bite to get out.

Sam almost jumped when he found someone was daring to breach their protective circle. Instinctively he threw his hand out to bar the man from touching his brother a second before it registered with him that the man was wearing a doctor's coat, had a name tag on declaring him as "Dr. Conner".

Understanding his mistake, Patrick rested back on his hunches, put his hands up placating. "Whoa, whoa! I'm here to help Dean. I'm his doctor, Patrick Conner. My guess is, you're his infamous little brother Sam."

His eyes meeting Cas' across Dean, Sam waited until the angel backed up the doctor's story with a small nod before he dropped his arm barring the doctor from Dean.

The doctor didn't waste any time. He pressed his fingers to Dean's wrist to measure his heartrate as he lifted Dean's shirt, scowled at the blood soaked bandage.

"Hey, doc, sorry about…" Dean began in apology, broke off in surprise when Dr. Conner's eyes rose to meet his and he saw a smile gracing the doctor's face.

"Popping me one in the face to save my life?" Patrick wryly said, wanted the man to know he understood his actions. Well, understood them once he picked himself off the ground, noted the drops of blood on the ground that he knew were a trail of Dean's progress from his hospital room. Then he was tearing down the stairs in pursuit of his AWOL patient only to be stopped by security at the entrance, found that he was cursed with a backstage pass to the events happening just outside the hospital doors. "I'd like to say we're even for the agony I put you through in the warehouse but I think you'd have to run me over with a car yet to even things up."

"Make that a semi-truck and we'll call it even-steven," Dean taunted back, happy at the doc's willingness to let him off the hook for the whole punching-him thing.

Patrick chuckled at his patient's ante to his offer. "Ok, well…honestly, I'm not really interested in getting even but I'll throw in an x-ray, a CT scan and more sutures to your already scheduled MRI trip just because I'm feeling generous. "

"Ah, doc, you're killing me with kindness," Dean grumbled, wasn't looking forward to any part of that medical marathon. But the doc was already looking behind him, instructing an orderly to get a stretcher. Before their space got any more crowded, Dean turned his attention to his brother, wanted to make sure Sam was ok because, it was kind of its own miracle his brother was there, wasn't still in jail, but then again, Sam was always there when he needed him.

Sam was watching the approach of the stretcher with trepidation. Yes, he knew Dean needed to be examined, that his wound needed new stitches, that Dean shouldn't walk into the hospital, heck, shouldn't walk anywhere. But knowing he was about to get pushed aside again, like he had in the warehouse, was about to get separated from Dean, like the troopers had physically done hours ago, it had his chest tightening, had his breathing coming out in a rush, his right hand fisting possessively in the front of Dean's shirt and his left clamping down hard on Dean's forearm. It was only his brother's voice that managed to break through his building panic attack.

"Sam? Hey, Sam? Sammy?!"

Eyes snapping to Dean, seeing his brother's concern _for him_ , Sam swallowed down his panic. Last thing he needed was for Dean's big brother protective instincts to kick in like they did in the warehouse, for Dean to divert any of his strength to making sure he was ok, because he was…ok. ' _Because Dean's ok, will be. The doc's not acting rushed, just proficient so Dean's gonna be just fine_ ,' he reassured himself before he drew on his nothing-fazes-me Winchester face and loosened his hold on his brother from clingy-four-year old little brother to simply-supportive-cool-as-a-cucumber adult little brother. "Whatever tests they want to run, they're running, Dean," he deemed as law, wasn't about to let Dean sweet talk his way out of any tests, or pain meds or his hospital stay, had spent all day worrying that he was going to or even had lost his brother and he wasn't going to let any of that became reality, not when he was there to stop it, was there to force Dean into doing what was in his best interest.

It was instinctive to resist, not only any medical advice, but Sam's you're-gonna-do-what-I-tell-you-to-do-or-else tone, and Dean was going to follow standard operating procedure, until he took a hard look at his brother's worn features, noted the smudges under his brother's eyes that bespoke of missed sleep, remembered how hard Sam had gripped his arm a moment ago before getting himself back under control. Knew that he wasn't fighting the Mark alone, that Sam was waging his own battle for him unseen, that his brother was worn thin too. And today's crapstorm of Michele's vampire dating game, Dom's frame job on Sam, the cops' arresting Sam and Sam worrying about him, it had all knocked down another level of Sam's fortification. Dean refused to add another sledgehammer blow to his brother's besieged wall. He owed Sam that much.

"Did I complain? Did I say _one word_ about not taking any test?" Dean replied as if he was insulted Sam would think such a thing of him.

"You were about to," Sam predicted then set down the law, "so don't."

"Dude, jail makes you grumpy. Next time go for a white collar crime frame up. Those cons get yoga classes and you love all the breathing, Zen, locust position chick crap," Dean joked, trying to get Sam's blood pressure down from the red zone.

But Sam was having none of it. "Jail doesn't make me grumpy, Dean! Thinking you were dead or dying all day long and then showing up here and having Dom threatening to give me a front row seat to you getting a bullet in the brain, that makes me grumpy."

The orderly chose that inopportune time to arrive with the stretcher and Dr. Conner's announced, "Ok, Dean, time to get you back inside."

But Dean dismissed the presence of the doctor, the orderly, Cas and the curious onlookers, focused fully on Sam, because though Sam had pulled on his game face, had erased any outward show of vulnerability, Dean had seen it and refused to let his brother stew in his funk while he got dragged off to be tested for stupid crap. Patting Sam on the chest, he teased, "Sammy, can I leave you alone for a few minutes without you getting arrested again? Because, if it comes down to splurging on buying pie or using my hard won funds to bail you out of jail, dude, I'm pretty undecided right now."

"Jerk," Sam laughingly shot back even as he knew Dean wouldn't just bail him out of jail. No, his big brother would stage a prison break or something even more dangerous to rescue him. But he decided to let Dean keep his tough guy reputation in front of their audience, gave his own threat instead, "Just remember what paybacks are...meaning I'm not hauling you out of here AMA."

Dr. Conner couldn't let that statement go without making his own comment. "Yeah and I gave you one free punch but the next time I see you going AWOL, I'm gonna be the one taking a swing. Now let's get you on the stretcher..." But Dean gripped the doctor's wrist, forestalled his reach for his arm, causing the man's startled eyes to snap up to his.

Looking to Sam, not his doctor, Dean declared, "Sam's got this."

A wave of warmth washed over Sam at Dean's insistence that he would only accept his help, of the trust Dean was offering him. ' _Yeah, Dean I got you'_ , he vowed silently as he and Dean worked as one to get Dean aboard the stretcher with a minimum of pain. Then before the doctor and orderly put the stretcher in motion, Sam purposefully wrapped his hand around his brother forearm, right over the Mark, and gave a reassuring squeeze, silently vowing that they'd handle the Mark together too. Reading the acknowledgment of the gesture in his brother's eyes, Sam gave a reassuring smile before he paced the stretcher, unshakably remained at his brother side, right where he was meant to be.

" **I know he's living in hell every single day**

 **And so I ask oh God is there some way for me to take his place**

 **And when they say it's all touch and go I wish I could make it go away**

 **But still you say**

 **Will you think that you're all alone when no one's there to hold your hand?**

 **When all you know seems so far away and everything is temporary, rest your head**

 **I'm permanent" ***

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TBC

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Thanks for reading and reviewing! A final chapter to wrap up loose ends will follow. Besides, Jody didn't get to see Dean yet!

 *** David Cook's song "Permanent"**

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.


	6. Chapter 6: Care and Attention

Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, or the Queen song, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's note: Ok, I went from not knowing why I didn't just wrap the story up last chapter to writing entirely too much for one chapter. Ssssooooo, there will be a chapter after this one. I refuse to apologize for the sap ahead because it was just so much fun to write.

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Chapter Six: Care and Attention

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Relegated to the waiting room outside the MRI testing corridor, Sam found it almost funny that now his hands were shaking, now when no one had a gun to his brother's head, that he knew Dean was going to be ok. Like all his suppressed fear was bubbling to the surface in some time delay. That it was finally hitting him full force everything he had fought so hard to not accept: that Dean could have been lost to him all over again, by Michele's bite, by Dom's fury, by Dean's own injuries. That he had tried to be so vigilant about the Mark not stealing Dean away from him…and then some creature of the week and fellow hunter nearly succeeded where the Mark had so far failed. It was a bitter pill that his trust in two hunters he thought he knew had nearly undone everything he was fighting so hard to never experience again.

Silently cursing, Sam couldn't believe how naïve he had been to let down his guard around Michele and Dom, fellow hunters or not. He should have figured out the danger to Dean sooner, like when Dean went to meet Michele solo in that warehouse or when he had instructed Jody to free Dom. Had thought himself so smart…smarter than the Vatelas he thought they were hunting, smarter than a jealous, grief crazed Dom. ' _Just like you think you're smart enough to get a cure for Dean from the Book of the Damned without bringing whatever consequences down on your heads, smart enough to outwit whatever scheme Rowena's conjuring up once the book is decoded.'_

As doubt slammed into him at the chances of him doing either of those things, he dropped his head into his hands, let out a sorrowful curse. He had to do better than he did today, had to be stronger, smarter, ….more cold-blooded. Strong enough to continue to lie to Dean's face about the Book, about where he's been slipping off to, about everything he was willing to do to save Dean. Had to anticipate Rowena's plans and foil them at the gate, to use her…and then make sure she could never tell Dean what he had done. Had to be cold blooded enough to accept whatever consequences came from curing Dean of the Mark, to keep his only focus on saving his brother, to not _care_ what it cost as long as Dean was ok.

' _And you think_ _if it costs you Dean's love, like him saving you cost him yours for all those months, that you can bear that? Who are you lying to now!_?' Sam jeered to himself. It had him hissing out a low curse because his earlier bravado was faltering, had to accept that he might not be that strong, didn't know how he'd draw breath if Dean truly hated him. All he could cling to was ….Dean being alive _to_ hate him, remaining human and being able to _feel_ hurt at his deception, that was better than the alternative, better than the brother he loved being gone forever.

Raising his head from his hands, Sam slouched back in the chair.

He had his answer.

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Dr. Connor didn't usually tag along to a patient's MRI scan, but then again, this wasn't his typical patient. The second he knelt down beside Dean in the warehouse, he had felt vested in his survival and that feeling had sunk way deeper knowing Dean had spared him from being entangled in his kidnapping. At a painful cost, because Patrick couldn't imagine how much it must have hurt Dean, with his wound, to throw that punch.

' _And if I feel vested in his well-being, his brother's in it up to his teeth.'_ He so didn't envy the man's psychological scars after all the events of the day, not to mention his continuing worry until Dean was fully recovered. But where Patrick had witnessed some patient's loved ones withdraw their love and presence in an effort to buffer themselves from fear and heartbreak, Dean's brother did the opposite, hadn't budged from his brother's side until the MRI door shut in his face. Had stood at Patrick's back as he stitched up the wound anew and Patrick felt like he was an intern again, that an expert stood at his back, ready to critique his suture technique. But Sam had said nothing…well, nothing to him. He spoke to his brother though.

Breaking the quiet, Sam asked with an amused lilt to his tone, "Cas give you my message?"

A smirk appeared on Dean's pale features. "About my choice in women? Yeah, you must be rubbing off on me."

Sam snorted in laughter. "Like you'd take dating advice from me. But I'm the one that told you not to hit on her."

"I listened to you!" Dean's manner affronted but there was a cocky smile emerging, though it didn't have much power when his complexion was whiter than the sheets. "I _hit_ her…not  on her."

"By the looks of you, she hit better," Sam volleyed back, seemed to revel in the scowl that earned him from his brother.

"Aren't you supposed to be here making me feel better about what happened?" Dean groused sans true anger.

"Feel better about you getting impaled and nearly dying?" Sam's voice rising incredulously before turning bitter, "Excuse me for not finding a good spin on that."

That shut down communications for a good two minutes, had both brothers avoiding the other's eye contact and intently watching Patrick's work with the sutures. Feeling like the air in the room was evaporating, Patrick considered speaking just to null the void in conversation but then Dean looked up to his brother, offered timidly, "You could go with 'all's well that ends well'."

"Our endings aren't always happy," Sam solemnly replied, thinking of Dean dying in his arms and the future ahead of them with the Mark still on his brother. Wanted to cling to hope but after all his screw ups today that had hurt his brother, it was hard to do.

Darting a self-conscious look to the doc, Dean cleared his throat, didn't usually go sappy in front of others but Sam _needed_ him to say something sappy. ' _So here goes_.' Eyes latching onto his brother's bowed head, he repeated Sam's words back to him. "Like you said…we're both still here."

That had Sam's eyes snapping up to his, surprise then warmth and finally hope dissolving away the fear of a moment ago. His voice husky, Sam agreed, "Yeah, we are," knew that wasn't just a boast or claim…it was a vow between he and Dean to keep fighting, to still both be there when the smoke cleared.

And Patrick didn't know the context of the prior conversation between the brothers but the one he was overhearing said all he needed to know about the brothers. ' _Yeah, like Sam risking his life to save Dean from that gunman wasn't proof enough of how much he loved his brother. And Dean only accepting Sam's help to get on the stretcher said it right back.'_

So Patrick wasn't surprised in the least that Sam hadn't taken his advice to head to the cafeteria for some food, was instead right where he had parted ways with his brother: pacing the hallway outside the MRI wing. Sam was asking "How is he? What did the MRI show?" before the electric doors behind Patrick had even started to close.

"Honestly, better results than I thought possible," Patrick stated, didn't know how the internal damage was making such a remarkable recovery, especially considering Dean's extracurricular activities the past hour. But he had scrutinized the test results three times…came up with the same good results each time. "The nick in his colon seems almost healed around the stitches and the bruising and the inflammation ….it's like it's gone."

Sam let out a pent up sigh of relief, would have given Cas a hug for his healing mojo if the angel was within close proximity. Made him wonder for the first time where the angel had gone off to. But then his thoughts zinged back to his brother. "But you're still going to do a CT scan and X-rays, right? Dom wouldn't have taken it easy on Dean." Knew Dean would blow a gasket if he learned that he had pressured his doctor into giving him tests that he might have been able to skip.

"Definitely. I have them lined up to do next. Since that'll mean more waiting room time for you, now seems like a great opportunity for you to grab some supper," Patrick suggested, hoping his powers of persuasion worked this time because, honestly, Sam looked out on his feet, like he might need a stretcher himself soon.

"I'm good," Sam dismissed the doctor's advice for a second time.

Seeing Dean's half-brother coming up the hall, Patrick jutted his chin out to indicate the man's arrival, "Maybe your other brother can make you see sense?"

Sam opened his mouth to ask ' _Other brother? What other brother?_ ' before it kicked into his exhausted brain: Cas. Cas would have taken up that ruse in order to be able to see Dean and have a say in his treatment. Turning, he saw Cas was almost at his side, saw the concern in the angel's eyes and immediately passed on the doctor's findings, "The doctor said that Dean's internal injuries are healing remarkable well." Hoped Cas read the gratitude in his gaze.

The tension in Cas' shoulders eased at the proof that at least he had been able to do that much for his friend, felt a warmth spread through him at Sam's look of thankfulness. But he knew he hadn't healed Dean completely and then after what he had suffered at the hands of Dom... "But he was bleeding, from his head and his wound and I…" he broke off, couldn't say what he wanted to…that he hadn't gotten a chance to heal Dean out there in the lawn with all the onlookers. But when his eyes darted to Sam's, he knew the other Winchester knew what he wasn't saying.

Patrick opened his mouth to give the half-brother the low down on the upcoming tests but Sam beat him to it, with surprising accuracy. "They're taking him for more tests to make sure he doesn't have a concussion with swelling on his brain and checking his ribs for breaks or cracks."

Then, as if he felt he had overstepped his boundaries, Sam turned meekly back to Patrick, consulted the real doctor in the hallway. "I mean….according to Dr. Sexy, that's what you're checking for. Sorry I get my medical knowledge from the same show Dean does."

"No, no, you're right," Dr. Connor drawled but couldn't help but tack on disparagingly, "Didn't think that show knew the difference between a stethoscope and a tongue depressor…"

Sam snorted aloud, appreciating the doctor's slam on the show before he remembered he should be _defending_ Dean's favorite show since he claimed his medical knowledge came from that source not years of hunting injuries. "Oh…no..I mean…they seem really interested in keeping things real, probably do tons of research."

"Uh huh," Patrick noncommittally replied before he turned to Cas. "Cas, I was just telling your brother that now would be a perfect time for him to grab some dinner at the cafeteria. Dean's going to be carted to two other stops before he's returned to his room and his condition is stable and I'm betting the police were worse at organizing a meal schedule that we are here." Looking back to Sam, he read the chagrined expression and knew the younger man hadn't even been offered a glass of water at the station. And it was funny to feel angry at the police in defense of Sam when he barely knew the guy, was just a brother of his patient. ' _A patient you're feeling very vested in,_ ' he reminded himself before he continued his entreaty to Cas, "So why don't you two take a break and then come up to Dean's room and wait for him there?"

"No we're ok here," Sam countered.

But Cas took a good look at Sam, saw what the doctor did but could read underneath the outwardly signs of exhaustion to Sam's fear, to the tinge of physical pain ebbing off of him, because Dean wasn't the only one to face off with Dom that day. Suddenly the doctor's advice seemed very sound but Cas also knew Sam wouldn't listen to him anymore than he would the doctor. But there was someone's wishes he would listen to, which was why, when Dean got rolled out of the MRI wing, Cas bid his time, let the brothers have their chance to exchange greetings before he put his strategy into play.

"One test down, two to go," Sam told his brother when his bed emerged through the doorway, rocking the optimistic vibe for both of their sakes .

"You're so going to owe me some pie for going along with this," Dean grumbled as the nurse continued to keep him in motion down the hallway.

Seizing the moment, Cas paced his best friend's bed. "Speaking of eating, would it be alright if Sam…"and conscious of the doctor's presence he amended, "Sam and I ate in the cafeteria while you did your next tests? We'll meet you back in your room afterward." Didn't look to Sam, knew the younger Winchester would be giving him a glare.

Knowing Cas didn't eat and therefore the request was made for Sam's sake, Dean looked to his brother, was hit again with his brother's worn-out features. Tapping the hand Sam had coiled around his bed rail, Dean ordered, "Sam, go get something to eat."

"I'm fine…not hungry, " Sam instantly rebutted his brother's suggestion, like he had the doctor's but Dean wasn't as pansy footed about ordering his little brother around.

"Sam, go eat. Now," Dean commanded in his best big brother tone that almost came off with its normal strength. Seeing Sam stiffening at the gruff order, Dean couldn't help but lightly add on, "Because you're not stealing my Jello, dude. Whether it's red or not, it's all mine."

"But Dean…" Sam began to protest the idea of them separating, hated that his voice did a little crack on his brother's name. But he didn't hate the affectionate smirk Dean shot to him when he heard it.

"Come on, we both know you get all moody from salad withdrawal," Dean teased, knowing it would get a rise out of Sam. His brother didn't disappoint.

"Rrriiiiggghhhtt, I'm the one that gets moody without food," Sam sarcastically countered.

"Glad you agree with me. Now go eat something green and disgusting." Sensing Sam's unwavering reluctance to leave his side, Dean tenderly ordered, "Go Sam. I'll see you when I get back to my room." Then Sam let go of the bed railing, let his brother get rolled down the hallway…without him. Did it because, more than Dean's words, was the look his brother had bestowed on him, a promise that he wasn't going anywhere, not without him.

Uncertain how Sam would react to his manipulation, Cas had stopped trailing Dean's bed a few paces back. Now stood in the hallway, not sure if he should stay, if Sam would want him to leave him alone or if Dean would want him to not leave Sam alone. Sometimes it was difficult being friends with both brothers, of deciding whose side to take whenever the brothers' paths diverged, usually in an act to protect the other from harm.

When Sam turned around, started to pass him in his determined stride for the cafeteria, he only managed a "Sam, I…" before Sam spoke over him, "I should call Jody, get her to join us. The least I owe her for getting me out of jail is a crummy dinner in a hospital cafeteria."

Knowing that the "us" in Sam's words were Sam's version of an invitation to stay with him, Cas found himself smiling as he turned to follow Sam into the cafeteria. Though the Winchesters might not say things directly, they always managed to get their feelings across….. To each other and the others they cared about.

Cas was honored and humbled to be among that number.

" **It's not easy love, but you've got friends you can trust**

 **Friends will be friends.**

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Entering the cafeteria, Jody, now in street clothing, bypassed the food line and went straight to Sam and Cas's table, towered over the younger Winchester like a scolding mom. "When we talked on the phone, you said our plan didn't exactly go off without a hitch but it got the job done…you failed to mention Dom came here and held Dean hostage."

Sam had the good grace to blush. "I didn't want you to worry or blame yourself."

"I do blame myself! You had Dom all…." Then realizing her voice was carrying…across the entire cafeteria, she sank into a chair opposite Sam and lowly continued, "tied up and he wasn't going to hurt anyone and I let him go…and then he goes and does this. Hurt's Dean," her anguish was written across her face.

Reaching out, Sam grabbed Jody's hands, "Jody, Dean's ok. Dom opened some of his stitches, knocked him around a bit…you know, like any other day for a Winchester. But Dean's going to be fine." Felt some of his own lingering fear abate at his reassurances to Jody. "And if you hadn't done what you did, I would still be in jail, wouldn't have gotten here in time to stop Dom from taking Dean and…" he broke off there, his emotions weren't that locked down to be able to imagine what Dom would have ultimately done with Dean. Said instead, "And I wouldn't be here now, to nag Dean to follow the doctor's orders." _'To see for myself that he's alive and going to heal up just fine..under my strict supervision.'_

Running a hand through her hair, Jody nodded, accepted Sam's forgiveness if not quite his praise. "I keep forgetting how even the best plans go sideways when you boys are involved _."_

Since Dean wasn't around to be the cocky one, Sam bragged in his place with a tired smirk, "It's a gift." Then he got to his feet and nodded his head toward the food line. "Let's grab some dinner before Dean beats us back to his room."

Jody stood, ready to take up Sam's offer when she realized the other table's occupant wasn't rising. "You're not…oh, right," as she remembered Cas' angel status. Then the fact hit her that she and Cas hadn't made official introductions. "By the way, it's nice to meet you in person." She offered her hand and Cas readily shook it.

"Thank you for accepting my call and coming to help Sam," Cas earnestly declared, wanting to openly show his appreciation for the sheriff's actions but didn't get the feeling Jody would offer him a hug on first meeting the way Charlie had.

"Don't tell Sam or Dean but…there isn't much I wouldn't do for those two boys," her eyes drifting to Sam with affection before settling back on Cas. "Guess I finally understand why Bobby was neck deep in trouble all the time trying to look out for those two wayward boys that could each bench press a car."

"Because they are worth it," Cas said aloud, knew his sentiment also summed up Jody's feelings correctly when she gave a curt nod. Then she headed to Sam's side, left Cas at the table waiting for his companions to return. And the solitude gave Cas time to come to terms with his ongoing deception to Dean about his efforts to find a cure for the Mark. Yes, Metatron was running around free now…but even the slim hope that the former angel could have spared Dean a future enslaved to the Mark's dark desires had been worth the risk, even the disastrous end results.

Sam's prior words helped assuage Cas' guilty conscience.

" _You got your grace back. You're back. You did the right thing."_

But he wouldn't feel truly at peace until they figured out a way to remove the Mark from Dean's arm, until he could stop lying to his best friend, until he knew that he'd never have to contemplate killing Dean in order to preserve the goodness in him. For today, though, him able to ease some of Dean's pain, to call in Jody to help get Sam out of jail, sticking around to ensure Dean was healing and Sam wasn't going to break under the strain of recent events, it was enough of a triumph for him.

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Jody rose from her chair as Dean was rolled back into the room, was a little shaken to see Dean so pale, looking vulnerable …breakable lying back in the bed. Even his "hey Jody," didn't make her fear abate, not when Dean's voice was raspy and too weak for her taste.

Suddenly the same motherly instincts that made her call out Dean's name in a panic and drop to her knees to cushion Dean's head with her knees when he came through the time portal with Chronos sprang forth again. Before she consciously made the decision, she was stepping toward Dean after the nurses finished hooking up his IV and left the room. But she caught herself before she reached him and shot a look of Sam, asking him for his permission to approach Dean, knew the younger man was on high alert, protection detail over his brother. She was granted a green light by Sam's surprised but real smile and permissive nod of his head.

Gaining Dean's side, she smiled gently down into his slightly pain dulled green eyes, couldn't resist pushing his hair off his forehead in a feather light motherly gesture. "Hey there, kiddo. I think we need to talk about when **not** to befriend vampires."

Dean chuckled, grimaced as his ribs, broken ribs thanks very much Dom, and the hole in his gut protested his action of mirth. "Ouch," he gritted out, hand pressing to the source of the worst pain. "Please no stand up acts until I can breathe without passing out."

Jody frowned in sympathetic pain, her hand coming down to cup Dean's cheek before she rested the back of her hand against Dean's forehead. "You've got a temperature too."

Seeing the way Sam stiffened in fear and was starting to approach the bed, Dean downplayed Jody's findings. "Partying with some types of people takes a lot out of a guy." Saw Sam's steamrolling approach stop at his joke and their eyes met. ' _Chill dude. A little fever's no big deal'_ he silently tried to convey to Sam, knew Sam had understood the unspoken words when his little brother rolled his eyes at his big brother's idea of what wasn't a big deal.

Choosing to not remark on the brotherly interaction going on around her, Jody wrapped her fingers around Dean's hand, bent over the bed so she could look down into Dean's eyes. "Maybe I should meet your friend's parents before you do any more sleepovers, huh?"

"Hey, sleepovers are off limits to mom votes. I certainly don't need anyone cramping my love life," Dean mockingly protested.

Joining into the conversation, Sam countered Dean's wishes with his own, "No, really, I think someone should put rules on your love life, Dean. Last time you had a 'sleep over' you and your 'friend' got taken by a hearth goddess."

"Yeah, I was there for that one," Jody recalled, giving Dean a motherly stink eye as she released his hand. "I think we talked about you making better choices, certainly better _timing_ with your romantic choices and to always answer your brother's phone calls. No matter what."

"You did?!" Sam shot to Jody, having been oblivious to this side conversation between his brother and Jody. But Dean's pink cheeks told him Dean remembered the conversation and was ashamed that Jody was calling him on it in front of Sam.

"Hey, I've been good on both of those accounts lately," Dean reassured Jody. "Boringly so."

"Want to tell me what happened a couple months ago then, when you went radio silent on Sam," Jody pressed, couldn't help but be curious and still slightly concerned about that time frame. Sharply remembered the fear in Sam's voice when he had called, hoping she had heard from Dean, the tremble in his words as he admitted that Dean was missing.

She wasn't expecting shame to darken Dean's eyes or Sam to suddenly be across from her, hoovering protectively over his brother like she was now a threat to Dean. "Just a misunderstanding," Sam curtly supplied, his eyes as dark as Dean's, not with shame but resolute determination to stall Jody's cross-examination on the spot.

But everything in Jody, every motherly, every cop instinct told her that Sam's explanation was a load of crap. And she wanted to call them on it…would have to…if there wasn't matching appeals for her to let it go in both of the brothers' gazes. Remembered a conversation with Bobby Singer one time when she had asked what the Winchesters were up to and Bobby had dejectedly said he didn't know.

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" _You don't know but they're out there fighting…well you know what things they're fighting and you don't even know where they are? What if they need your help? What if something happens? What if they drop off the grid and you don't even know where to start looking for them?"_

" _Don't you think I want to know where they are? That I'll be there with them if they'd let me?!" Bobby had heatedly shot back but she had known the man long enough by then to read the hurt in his expression. Then Bobby had sighed, ran a hand over his face and filled two glasses of whiskey and offered her one. "One thing I wish they hadn't picked up from their daddy: This need to cut everyone else out of their lives, to face things on their own. To think they're a burden when they are the farthest thing from it…to me."_

" _You ever tell them that?" she had quietly asked, taking a sip of the whiskey._

" _What, me bearing my soul? You think that just opens the doors that losing so many people shut up brick by brick in those two boys? Well it don't," Bobby had gruffly retorted. They had sat in silence awhile before Bobby spoke again, his voice strained but resolved, "Best I can do is listen when they talk, come when they need me and …"_

 _Watching Bobby take a healthy swallow instead of continuing his advice, Jody pressed, "And what?" because she wanted to know Bobby's secret for keeping his worry at bay for the two men she had started to think of as friends._

 _When Bobby's eyes met hers, she realized how little she really knew the town's drunk even after all these years, had no idea the vulnerable heart beating under all his bluster. "And pray every night they make it back to me again in one piece."_

 _To that, Jody gave a nod, her own throat closing up because that had been her prayer every night when her son was alive, for God to take care of him and see no harm came to him. A prayer that didn't get answered, certainly not in the way she had wanted it to. Hoped that God granted Bobby better luck in taking care of the boys he considered sons._

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At the memory, Jody blinked away tears and nodded, would not press for answers, would take a page out of Bobby Singer's book and take up his rules for how to love the Winchesters in the only ways they would accept. "Ok. Inquisition's over. But my offer to talk is always open," she announced her eyes alighting on both Winchesters.

"Clam chowder still part of the deal?" Dean challenged and she smiled, glad he hadn't forgotten her earlier offer of the same back in Hibbin.

"Absolutely. Might even throw in a beer if I'm feeling generous," she lightly returned, glad Dean wasn't angry at her earlier pushiness.

"You promise pie and Dean'll beat you back home," Sam imparted, ensuring Jody that there were no hard feelings, that he knew her questions were out of concern not prying.

"My pie crusts aren't great but the diner down the block from the police station makes a killer apple pie. So consider that part of the package."

Sam smiled. "Good to know." Then his eyes fell to Dean, worried that the reference to his time as a demon were taxing his brother's waning strength, he suggested, "Dean, hey, I think you should get some rest." Had noticed when Dean got rolled into the room that his brother's adrenaline spiked strength from early had dissipated, leaving Dean fighting to put up a good front that he hadn't been beat down nine ways from Sunday.

"Rest…I missed lunch and supper's coming soon," Dean whined like a seven year old, causing Sam to give him a tolerant but gentle smile.

"I'll wake you when the food shows up, scout's honor," Sam vowed.

"You were never a scout, Sam," Dean retorted but he was already fighting to keep his eyes open, like Sam's suggestion had made his exhaustion real.

"I'll see you a bit later," Jody bid, giving Dean's knee a pat.

"'Kay," Dean managed around a yawn, watched as Jody headed for the door. Then Sam was using his most earnest, I'm-here-so-nothing-can-hurt-you tone on him.

"I'm not going far. I'll walk Jody out, be back in a few minutes," Sam promised like Dean was some kid in the hospital for the first time.

And Dean wanted to resent his brother's tone, the idea that Sam thought he needed his hand held, but instead he was just grateful Sam wasn't going away, would be there to make sure he didn't lose himself, feared that the Mark would bury itself deeper in him with his guard lowered under the painkillers's influence and the head trauma if no one was there to keep him grounded. "Thanks Sammy."

The unexpected grateful declaration, plus the spooked look in Dean's eyes rooted Sam to the spot, made the idea of getting more than a meter away from his brother seem like he would be abandoning him. "I don't have to walk her out."

Realizing that his display of weakness was freaking Sam out, he instilled strength into his next words, "Yeah..you do. Go on. I'm not going anywhere." But it was a few moments of Sam locked in place, his eyes searing into his, trying to read him before Sam gave an undertoned, "ok" before he joined Jody in the hallway.

Finally freed from being under his brother's watchful eye, Dean closed his eyes, bit back the groan of pain as he tried to shift into a positon that put less pressure on his broken rib and the nifty hole in his side. Didn't think sleep was going to come easy now or even for a good month. ' _Not like sleep came easy for me any how'_ and to know that Sam knew about his crappy sleep patterns and the nightmares and hadn't mentioned it…it left Dean feeling more vulnerable.

But contrary to his thoughts, sleep did come for him. Dragged him under like a black wave from a hurricane into even blacker depths.

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Pacing Jody down the hallway, Sam kept running what he wanted to say through his head, finally exhaled and blurted it out. "Jody, I owe you an apology."

That opening statement had Jody stopping in the hallway to face Sam. "For what?"

Sam shifted nervously on his feet. "For not letting you know I found Dean after …you know, his radio silence," using her own words in the hopes that he wasn't dredging up what he had made pretty clear he wasn't going to give her details about. But the truth was, she had deserved better than him not calling her back.

Not sure why Sam seemed to be opening a door to a topic that he had politely but firmly shut in her face, she dismissed his statement with a blasé "ok," and started heading for the bank of elevators again. But Sam used his long legs to catch up to her, grabbed her elbow in a firm but gentle hold. But released her when he had regained her full attention.

"Jody, it wasn't anything against you, I just…" Sam faltered, didn't know quite what to say about how he had felt back then, his reasonings. Seeing the patience in Jody's gaze, he drew in a deep breath and tried to express himself. "Talking about good things…it seems to jinx it. I got Dean back and I was so…"Had to swallow the catch in his throat at that memory, at the wash of emotions he still felt even months later. "I was so happy and I was afraid… afraid that if I let myself revel in that ..that joy…it would be taken away. Dean would be taken away from me again. And I can't…" He stopped there, his jaw latched together so his emotions didn't leak out.

"Sam, I get that, I do," Jody gently allowed. "But you should also remember that I care about you two, that if you need help or…anything, you can call me. I'm not the wealth of information Bobby was, am still learning my way around all things weird but I shoot straight, I don't faint at the sight of fangs and, unlike you two delinquents, I was _trusted_ with passwords into the federal database and my badge is real."

Sam couldn't hold back a smirk at the last qualification on Jody's list. "Hey, Dean's really proud of my Ikea badge making skills."

"I'm sure he is," Jody allowed, knew that Dean was proud of Sam for a million of his brother's more important traits. "Speaking of Dean, you better get back in there. I wouldn't put it past him to sweet talk a nurse into sneaking him in a burger."

"Yeah, me neither. So…see you later?" And there was hope in Sam's voice, he wasn't keen to see Jody leave them just yet.

"You bet. And when I get back, I'll bring you a change of clothing." At Sam's confusion at her statement, she leaned closer to him, said lowly, "I'm not saying you stink but I've cozied up to firefighters who smell less like smoke than you do." With that, she entered the elevator, gave Sam a wink and punched the button for the ground floor, but she caught Sam in the act of sniffing his shirt before the doors closed fully.

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When Sam reentered Dean's hospital room, his brother was out like a light. Coming to stand at the side of the bed, Sam watched his brother in sleep, felt gutted by the raw vulnerability radiating from Dean now that his bravado front had fallen away. It hit him all over again: Dean had nearly died. Again. Remembered the way Dean had looked at him back in the warehouse in this town..almost like he had in that other one where he drew his last breath. Like he thought he was leaving him, should be saying goodbye.

Releasing a breath more shaky than steady, Sam ran his hands down his face. If Dean wanted him to know, to experience the same desperation he had a year ago, to know how it felt to have his brother's life slipping away right before his eyes, he had accomplished it. Same situation…different brother….same willingness to do anything… ANYTHING to save his brother's life, to keep him with him. Cross whatever lines he had to, tell whatever lies that needed telling. Check, check, check.

' _At least Dean asked for help from the relative good side, sought an angel's help to save me. Not me. I go looking for answers from all things darkside.'_ Sam knew he should feel guiltier for his actions but the truth was, he felt a thousand times worse lying to Dean about it all. Wanted Dean fighting at his side to get a cure, for them to be going after it together, because that's when they usually won even the most unwinnable battles. Side by side.

But Sam knew Dean…just like Dean knew him. Dean knew he'd say no to the angel possession…so he tricked him into saying yes to it. And Dean would never agree to Sam's current methods to save him…had in fact ordered Sam to burn the Book of the Damned, thought the codex was locked away somewhere heavily warded in the Bunker, would kill Rowena if he saw her again.

He had called Dean's actions selfish…but was it selfish to do everything, risk anything, forsake every moral code you possessed when you did it all out of love? When there was the slimmest hope, but hope none the less, that you could save your brother's life…his soul, how could you choose not to pursue that hope? No, the true act of selfishness would be to withhold your love, to bow to your moral codes, to stay behind those blurring lines, to be more worried about your own soul than the one you claimed to love.

Truth was, Winchesters were anything but selfish when it came to each other. There was no cost too high, no risk too great….no deception too low if it meant saving each other.

Sam startled when Cas spoke, looked up to see the angel standing at the end of Dean's bed.

"This is the most peaceful he's been since he regained consciousness."

Clearing his throat, Sam looked down to Dean then up to Cas, give a closed mouthed smile. "Guess he's healing."

But Cas shook his head. "It's not the lessening of pain that gives him peace, Sam, it's your presence."

Sam gave a bitter bark of laughter, stepped back from Dean like he didn't deserve to be that close to his own brother. "Right, because I've done such a good job of taking care of him lately. Well….ever. And now with the Mark…" and unconsciously his eyes dropped to the burn in his brother's forearm. "I've done jack to help him control it."

"Sam, when I attempted to fully heal Dean, I felt the power of the Mark…," the angel's declaration had Sam's eyes flying up worriedly to Cas'. "Even with my restored grace, I could not lessen its hold on Dean's soul."

Nodding somberly, Sam croaked, "Yeah, we kinda knew it wasn't gonna be that simple, right?" a pained smile of defeat cracking his features.

"A human soul is a mixture of good and evil, of pain and joy, of strength and weakness, of love and hate. And there is a constant struggle within every human to see what desire is acted upon. With Dean, the Mark seeks to unleash the evil, the pain, the weakness, the hate buried within him but your brother, he's managed to stifle the Mark, to find a way, a place to lock it away. Accomplishes that by drawing on the good in himself, the joy he's known, the love he's felt, the strength he possesses and others have given to him. And you're part of that piece of him, Sam. It's memories of you, of your love for him, your faith in him, strands of your strength that he draws on to continue to fight the Mark," Cas assured Sam, hoping the man took comfort in that knowledge, like Cas did when he stumbled across Dean's small cache of memories of him, knew that he too was contributing strength to Dean's struggle.

Sam's eyes had gone wide as Cas' words sunk in and he came to Cas, hurriedly began his cross examination, "But if Dean can fight it…if memories and ..and love and faith dampen the Mark's hold on Dean…maybe Dean can hold out against it. Maybe we can help, do more for him. Maybe…"

But Cas couldn't let Sam cling to forlorn hope. He cut across the man's excited words, "Sam, it's a stop gap only. The Mark…it grows stronger every day it's within Dean and while he was a demon…it was free to do its will all those months, to taint every inch of Dean's soul." Cas hated to see Sam's crestfallen look but he had to tell the other man the truth. "The Mark is already adapting, is learning Dean's strengths..and his weaknesses. Seeks to exploit both to break free of the chains Dean has coiled around it. It took advantage of Dean's wounded state, would not allow me to fully heal Dean, thinking to gain the upper hand while Dean's physical body was weakened. It's like a living, breathing thing, Sam. Its desire is to control Dean fully. To what ends…I don't know. But knowing who gave Cain the Mark, it can't be anything good."

Sam wanted to punch something, to scream, to maybe breakdown and cry, anything to release the fear and hopelessness building in his chest after Cas's words. Felt Cas' hand fall on his shoulder and knew the angel meant to give him comfort but it wasn't enough. Nothing would be enough if he lost Dean.

He tried to wipe the anguish from his face when Dr. Conner chose that moment to stroll into the room. "Gentlemen," he greeted before he went to Dean, checked the readings on the machine at Dean's side before wrapping his fingers around Dean's wrist, tracking his heartrate. Shooting a look over his shoulders at Dean's brothers, he quietly asked, "Has he been out long?"

"No…'bout fifteen minutes or so," Sam supplied, vigilantly watching the doctor's every move, trying to interpret the man's expressions to know how Dean was progressing. "The CT scan and the X- rays, what did they come back with?"

Seemingly satisfied with Dean's heartrate, the doctor released his hold on Dean's wrist, stood up to face Sam and Cas. "No concussion, apparently he just got his hard head rattled a bit. The x-rays, on the other hand, showed two broken ribs, which on their own are no picnic, but with the initial wound from the warehouse, will leave him pretty miserable for the next month or so."

Sam grimaced but gave an accepting nod. He couldn't undo any of that, couldn't go back in time and get to the hospital before Dom had a chance to further hurt his brother. But the helplessness along with Cas' dark perdition were turning his stomach sour. Hoped none of that showed on his face when the doctor came to stand in front of him but the doctor's opening words almost undid all his hard work to keep himself under control.

"I have to be honest with you, medically speaking your brother's odds of survival from the start were bleak. The blunt trauma, the blood loss, internal bleeding, he coded at the warehouse and I thought…" Patrick shook his head, knew he was focusing on things that hit a nerve with him instead of his point he was trying to make. "But he fought his way back, somehow, and I …I admired that about him. Thought he had to have something, _someone_ here worth sticking around for and yet…there he was alone in the hospital. And it felt like no one was fighting for him."

Hurt crumbled Sam's resolve and he brokenly protest, "I couldn't be here. I wanted to be…"

But Patrick held up his hand, forestalling Sam's defense. "Then your brother showed up," nodding toward Cas. "And I told him I thought Dean just needed to know he wasn't alone, that someone was in this fight with him, wouldn't let him go. And your brother said that the last thing he would do, or you would do was let Dean go." Patrick interjected a grimace of half shame, half hurt. "In my job, I've heard a lot of declarations, witnessed people make vows in the heat of the moment they couldn't keep, never intended to keep. But I wanted to believe Cas, wanted Dean to believe he wasn't alone at least long enough to get past the worst of his injuries."

"Then I saw you out there on that front lawn today, Sam, facing off with a guy who was holding a gun to your brother's head, who seemed more likely to shoot you both than care about getting killed himself. And it was clear that you didn't care if something happened to you, as long as Dean survived. Witnessing that, watching Cas go to Dean's side afterward, seeing the three of you together, knowing how hard you both were willing to fight to keep Dean with you, it makes Dean's near phenomenal rate of healing not such a mystery. Like my dad used to say, "Science has its limitations, good thing love doesn't.'"

Jerking his head back to indicate Dean, Patrick declared, "He's going to be just fine and that has more to do with you two than my medical degree." Patting Sam on the back and giving Cas a proud nod of his head, he headed out of the room, knew his patient was in the best hands possible.

" **Friends will be friends**

 **When you're in need of love, they give you care and attention**

 **Hold out your hand cos friends will be friends right till the end" ****

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TBC

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 **** Friends will be Friends by Queen**

Thanks for all those out there still reading! And I'm loving every single one of my reviews!

Final part is written just needs Betaed then it's coming your way.

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.


	7. Chapter 7: Going My Way

Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, or the Tom Cochran song, or Common Law nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's note: As promised, here's the final chapter! Good thing too because I was running out of fitting songs!

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Chapter Seven: Going My Way

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" **Life's like a road that you travel on  
When there's one day here and the next day gone  
Sometimes you bend sometimes you stand  
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind  
There's a world outside every darkened door  
Where blues won't haunt you anymore"  
**

Jody heard Sam's unmistakable laugh before she crested the room's doorway, saw Sam and Cas had pulled the chairs close to the bed, that the three men were in the middle of a game of rock, paper, scissors, maybe. Cas's hand gesture was more the Mork of Mork and Mindy alien greeting than the scissors one.

"No, not those fingers," Sam laughingly instructed, grabbed Cas' hand and pushed his three fingers together to show him how the hand signal was supposed to be made.

Dean looked up at their new visitor and greeted her with a smile. "Finally, someone to rescue me. Please tell me you have clothing in that bag for me so I can get out of here and not endure another round of this torture." He shot to Cas, " I thought Metatron downloaded you with pop culture. You know how to do the game Twister but you don't get how to make a scissors with your hands?"

"It's not been a skill set I've needed in the past," Cas testily volleyed back to Dean.

Jody snorted, made as if to hand the paper bag to Dean before deviously winking at him and dropping the bad into Sam's lap. "Change of clothing for you, Smoky the Bear."

Sam huffed even as he stood up, bag in hand, and headed dutifully to the bathroom in Dean's room, uncaring that it was supposed to be for patient use only. He heard his brother's voice through the thin wooden door.

"Yeah, about that smoked hickory thing you got going on. You wanna tell me about that now?" Dean rose his voice to be heard in the bathroom.

' _No_ ,' Sam silently replied but knew Dean wasn't going to let it go, had mentioned it a time or two before but had other things to distract him. Sighing as he stuffed his smoky clothing into the bag, he exited the bathroom, did a few stumbling hopping on one leg maneuvers to draw on his boots again before he took up a position leaning against the heating unit in the room and let Jody take his chair. But Dean's gaze tracked him there, pinning him with that penetrating gaze he had down pat.

"So?" and Sam recognized that it was Dean's interrogating version of the word.

Sam put his hands out like he was about to impart something so simple it was hardly worth mentioning, "On the road leading to the warehouse, I started Dom's car on fire, sent a pic of it to Michele, made her think Dom was in the trunk. She came, I took her head then ran to the warehouse to rescue the damsel in distress before she fainted from all the excitement." Hoped the taunt would throw off Dean's detective instincts.

But Dean wasn't taking the bait, wasn't even throwing a barb back at Sam, was instead leveling that measuring stare upon his brother. "Even with all the smoke…she would have smelled you. Had to know it was a trap."

"What can I say, I'm the better hunter," Sam boasted with a closed mouth smile.

"Yeah, undoubtedly. Still isn't the full story. Took her by surprise how, Sam? There was no cover out there, no trees to hide behind. So it was you, a burning car and a pissed off vampire." Then Dean's face clouded with fear. "Tell me you weren't under the car?!"

"No!" Sam denied at his brother's slight to his brilliance.

But Dean's eyes narrowed. "Where were you, Sam?" a lethalness to his tone that brought a chill to the room. "Sam!"

Giving up his relaxed pose, Sam pushed off the heating unit and towered over his brother. "You know where I was. It was my best shot at taking her by surprise."

"Sam, for the love of….what were you thinking?!" Dean wrathfully demanded, felt sick at the thought of Sam in the _burning car's trunk_.

"That you were dying in the warehouse and Michele stood between me getting to you! I didn't have time for some fancy plan. What I did worked, Dean!" Sam shot back, refused to apologize for risking his life to save Dean's.

"You could have burned to death, succumb to smoke inhalation! Michele could have smelled that it was you and trapped you in there or ripped your head off when she opened the trunk. It was too risky, Sam!" Dean railed, hands fisting in the sheets, trying to ignore the pain shooting up from his ribs and side from the powerful exhale of air he was expelling in nearly shouting at Sam.

Almost able to feel the pain ebbing off of Dean, Sam knew he needed to defuse the situation quickly before Dean did more harm to himself. Claiming a seat on the bed beside his brother's hip, Sam rested his hand against his brother's breast bone, spoke calmly and yet firmly as his eyes held Dean's. "Hey, just take a breath, Dean. Come on, breathe."

Obeying Sam's command, Dean pulled air into his lungs, felt the black edges that had begun to narrow his vision disappear. Drew in another breath and felt some of the pain coursing through him lessen. But his eyes still sparked with reprimand even if his next words were weak, "You shouldn't have done that, Sam."

"Yeah, well, tough," Sam growled back but there was warm affection in the look he leveled at Dean. And the hand he still held against Dean's chest was there to ground Dean, to link the brothers, not to restrain Dean's motion. Sam could feel the reassuring thud of his brother's heart under his fingers but Dean's inhale/exhales were still spaced out too far for his liking. "Take some more deep breathes, Dean."

Not really having the air capacity right then to grouse at Sam ordering him around, Dean found himself obeying his brother, would have resented that Sam's logic made him feel better if he wasn't so relieved to be able to catch his breath after a few more deep inhales and exhales. Found that he could loosen his grip on the bedsheets and the ringing in his ears was abating. ' _Cocky know it all little brothers'_ , Dean silently groused but Sam's worried expression knocked the irritation right out of him.

"You good?" Sam asked, ready to press the button for the nurse if Dean gave any indication to the contrary.

"Yeah," Dean raspingly replied, wasn't surprised that Sam grabbed his water cup the next second and he found a straw was pressed against his lips. Not worth it to fight Sam's ministrations, Dean sipped up some water, felt it soothe the dryness in his throat.

Returning the cup to the tray, Sam studied Dean, trying to make his own assessment of his brother's health. He didn't need to put his hand to Dean's forehead like Jody had earlier to know Dean was still fighting a fever, could feel the heat through the thin hospital gown under his hand and read the crinkle of pain lines around his brother's eyes. Being "Good" was a relative term with them. But he wasn't there to tear down Dean's fortifications, was there to safeguard them. "I think Cas is getting the hang of the rock, paper, scissors. Another…what? Hundred games and he'll have it down pat."

"Put me out of my misery now," Dean dramatically groaned and Sam chuckled, gave a light pat to his brother's chest and then stood up, gave Dean the space he usually craved.

"Yeah, hate to miss joining in on the intelligent games but I got two teen age girls to get back to," Jody announced as she gained her feet. "They've probably scheduled an appointment at the tattoo parlor while I'm gone." Wasn't expecting Cas to suddenly stand too, be almost in her personal space before he seemed to catch himself on the social faux pas and stepped back. She didn't miss the look Cas sent to Dean or the approving nod Dean returned, like Dean was proud of Cas for remembering social graces.

"Sheriff Mills, I wanted to thank you for taking in Claire. I know…I wish….If I could have helped her more…"Cas stammered, still felt guilty at the heartbreak he had unintentionally brought down on the girl.

"It's Jody," Jody corrected, "and…the way Claire talks about you, you've done just fine by her. I'll send her your love."

But that statement threw Cas for a loop, had him stammering, "I'm not sure my love is…"

Sam stepped in to save the day on that one. "What Jody means is, she'll tell Claire you asked about her." At that clarification, Cas nodded his consent.

Then Jody came to Dean's side, brushed that pesky spring of unruly hair off his forehead and leaned down and hugged him, said by his ear, "No matter what you're going though, you're not alone, kiddo. Don't forget that."

Huskily, Dean replied, "I won't," as he returned her hug before she drew back, went to Sam to exchange a hug with him. Then with a "You need me, you call me," command she left the three men alone in the room.

Cas nearly sighed, reluctant to leave. "Guess I should be going too. I have…" but he broke off because his plans weren't for publication, not when finding Metatron topped his to-do list, lamely completed his sentence with, "…things I need to do."

"Wow, that's specific," Dean teased but it got a small smile out of Cas as it was intended to.

"I'll come by the Bunker in a week or two, maybe I'll be able to restore more of your health by then," Cas planned, hoped to find something in his travels that would help get around the Mark's block in healing Dean's injuries.

"Or you could just stop by to kick back and shoot the breeze," Dean countered, wanted Cas to know he didn't need to do any angel miracles to be welcome at the Bunker, that his presence was gift enough.

Cas smiled as Dean's meaning sank in. "I'd like that." Turning to Sam he simply offered "Sam" as a way of goodbye and left the brothers on their own.

"Well, looks like it's just you, me…and an entire medical floor of patients, nurses and doctors. Cozy,really," Dean drawled, hoped Sam was reading his dissatisfaction with being stuck in the hospital loud and clear.

Sam did…and chose to ignore his brother's discontentment. Instead, he plumped down on his chair again, brought his long legs up to rest on the end of Dean's bed and settled in for a nap. Watching out for his big brother was a tiring job.

"I know you're not asleep, Sammy," Dean called out to his brother. "Hey, let's at least talk about this staying in the hospital idea. Sam? Sam?"

Sam fought back a smirk but kept this eyes closed when Dean quietly started to grumble to himself.

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" **There ain't no load I can't hold  
Road so rough this I know  
I'll be there when the light comes in  
Just tell 'em we're survivors"**

The Bunker was a sight for sore eyes, and not just for Dean. A week in the hospital turned out to be pretty torturous for both of them, Sam's back was killing him from sleeping in the visitor chairs night after night and Dean's hand was black and blue from the IV port, his sleep patterns screwed to high heaven, his hair was growing out and his stomach was rumbling for something more satisfying than soup or cold mashed potatoes and questionable meat under a lid.

But reaching the Bunker was one thing, getting Dean inside and down to his room was yet another hurdle to tackle. "Can't believe they don't have a friggin' elevator in this whole building," Sam grumbled, knew, in theory. parking out front and helping Dean down the spiral stairway was better than pulling into the garage and making Dean huff it up four flights of narrow, uneven stairs. But it still seemed like a daunting task as he stood at the top of the spiral staircase, didn't miss that Dean was leaning heavily against the railing, breathing heavily at the energy it drained from him to get out of the car and take the twenty steps into the Bunker's front door entrance.

It made Sam worriedly bite his lower lip, still trying to devise a better plan on how to get Dean into the bunker. Was on the verge of suggesting they bug out and go to a motel when Dean broke the silence. "Crap but it's good to be back," unknowingly dispelling Sam's plan B.

Letting out a held breath, Sam put himself in motion and came to Dean's side. Slipping his arm around Dean's waist, he levered Dean from his lean against the railing to come to a lean against him. "Ok, well, your foam bed's probably forgotten you by now," he jeered to distract Dean as they made their first lumbering step toward the stairs of doom.

"Bite your tongue! We're so into each other," Dean shot back, a little breathless already.

"You're so disturbed," Sam chided but he couldn't keep the fondness from his tone. Halted them on the precipice of the stairs and looked to his brother. "You ready to do this?"

"No…" Dean replied in rare honesty but before Sam could flip out and offer to carry him again, he resolutely announced, "But let's do it anyways." Cinching Dean tighter to him, Sam stepped down onto the first stair even as Dean matched his motion. And then it was slow, in synch motion, step after step after step until Dean stumbled, felt his legs trembling under his own weight. Without a word, Sam pushed Dean to sit down on the stairs, managed to put his tall frame on the step below his brother while keeping his hold on Dean's arms.

Dean was plastered in sweat, his eyes were closed and his breathing pained.

"Dean, what do you need me to do?" Sam asked, fighting back a wave of panic, wondering if he should be carrying Dean up the stairs they just traversed, shoving him back into the Impala and putting petal to the metal to the nearest hospital.

Resting his too hot forehead against the cold railing of the staircase, Dean mumbled, "Just need a minute, Sammy."

"Take as long as you need, Dean. I'm not going anywhere."

"Know you're not," Dean breathed before he opened his eyes, felt guilty for the worry he was causing Sam. But he had done more than worry Sam lately. A lot worse. "You didn't mean it, I know that, Sam. I should have known it the second you said it," Dean declared.

The statement brought Sam to a mental standstill, had him trying to figure out what Dean knew he didn't mean, "Dean, I…don't understand."

And Dean wanted to sigh because of course Sam wanted the full-all-inclusive chick flick package. "You know, that you wouldn't save me…same circumstances." Watched as the color drained from Sam's face…just like it had in that cabin with Charlie when he had thrown Sam's sentiments back in his face. He hurriedly continued, "Sam, I knew you'd come for me when Michele had me, that you'd risk your life for mine. Do whatever you had to do to save me, like sticking with me until the paramedics showed and letting yourself get arrested and being stupid enough to go up against Dom without a weapon. So we're good, ok. I shouldn't have made you think you had to prove something that I never should have doubted."

Dean's words were a lot to take in, mentally and emotionally and it took Sam a moment to formulate a comeback. "I should have never said those words, Dean. Didn't mean them even as I was saying them. I was pissed and…I just reacted. But …I get now why you did what you did to save me. And I know what I'm capable of when it comes to saving you," Sam declared, silently tallied his sins in that department, knew he was capable of committing a lot of atrocities in the name of brotherly love.

Dean stilled at Sam's loaded statement, felt an uncomfortable chill go down his spine. "What are you talking about, Sam? What are you capable of?"

But Sam wasn't going to answer that question, instead prodded, "You good to go a few more steps? We can take another break after that."

Dean nodded, felt his wound in his side and the healing ribs flare in pain as Sam helped him stand up, but it felt good, the pressure of Sam's arm coiled around his waist, bracing the wounds. Gave him the fortitude to take another step and another and not stop until they reached the ground floor. Then it was an old man's shuffle until they made it through the map room, up a few stairs, down a few and through the hallway.

His bedroom never looked so good to him as they crossed over its threshold. And though he wanted to crash full out on the bed, Sam sat him on the edge of the bed instead.

Bending down to be eye level with Dean, Sam cupped his brother's right cheek. "You're not gonna pass out on me, are you? Can sit here a bit until I get the covers situated?"

"Not gonna pass out," Dean stubbornly pledged, though his words were a little slurred.

But Sam took his oath as truth, nodded and then slipped his hand free of Dean's face. He made quick work of pulling back the covers then he was kneeling in front of Dean, pulling off Dean's boots before he tugged Dean to his feet, had him do a two-step shamble before he eased him back on the bed, hand bracing his neck until his head found it's home on the pillow. Then Sam swung Dean's legs up onto the mattress.

The room spinning around him, Dean closed his eyes, lost a little time then felt his bed dip with Sam's weight at his hip, gave a little start when something cool came to rest across his forehead. He didn't protest when Sam used the wet wash cloth to wipe away the sweat soaking his face and neck. Found it oddly relaxing when Sam's fingers clutched his wrist so his brother could measure his heart rate, didn't even care when Sam raised his t-shirt, lifted his bandage and prodded gently on his ribs. Though he groaned a little in discomfort, it wasn't the roaring agony that he felt in the warehouse with a rebar in his gut or even the first few days in the hospital on the good drugs.

Feeling the weight of Sam's stare, Dean finally managed to pry his eyes open, could read Sam's body language like he could the sound of the Impala's engine. Made it easy for Dean to know that his brother was worrying himself into an early grave, over him. "That sucked but you were wrong."

Sam swallowed hard, knew he had been wrong about a million things, hated to think what one thing Dean was thinking of. "Wrong about what?" ' _Letting you leave the hospital, driving across how many states in one day in a desperate need to get you home? Dragging you down twenty three stairs? Making you feel unloved enough that you went and got the Mark of Cain branded on your arm, your soul?_ ' His sins were innumerable in his eyes.

But a smile turned up Dean's lips and he patted the mattress under his worn and abused body. "The memory foam…it didn't forget me."

And Sam didn't know if he wanted to laugh, cry or simply hug his brother. Settled for a beloved insult of "You're an idiot," instead.

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Dean knew he had been sleeping more than awake for the past two weeks, that his concept of time was screwed up but it still seemed entirely too early for happy whistling. Hauling himself, gingerly for the sake of his wound and broken ribs, out of bed, he exited his room and followed the sound to his brother's bedroom. Taking up a leaning stance against the doorframe that helped keep him upright, he watched his brother as he stood on his bed and used a level to mark a straight line across the back wall of his room. Noted that the room had undergone other changes already, like the set of Shakespeare volumes that had been incongruently in among the other men of letters books were now in a place of honor on Sam's bureau. Then there was a painting of a mountain range tilting against the left wall, apparently the one that Sam was making room for above his headboard.

"You turn into Martha Stewart while I was sleeping?" Dean posed, causing Sam to swivel around to see his guest. Dean was blindsided by the smile Sam beamed at him.

"Hey, you're up before the afternoon soaps. That mean you're feeling better?" hope gushing from Sam's tone.

Dean hated to disappoint Sam's optimism so he simply said, "Yeah, pretty good" and chose not to mention it was whistling-while-you-work Sam that roused him from sleep. Dean raised his finger and gestured around the room, "Making some changes I see."

Sam gave a shrug like him getting the decorating bug wasn't out of the ordinary for him. "Thought it was time."

"For a change, yeah, gotcha," Dean quietly said, trying to hide his hurt, knew that Sam felt stifled in the Bunker, like it was a ball and chain ,just like he felt Dean was on most days.

Detecting the hurt in Dean's reply, realizing that his brother wasn't making the right conclusions, Sam leaned the level against the wall, stepped off the bed and circled the bed to pick u wooden picture frame. "You're just in time to help me," he declared. Picking something else off the bureau, he turned and presented that item to Dean.

But Dean froze mid grab, felt his hand tremble before he saw it shake. Fisting it, he pulled it back. Was relieved it didn't come into contact with what Sam had held out to him. "No," Dean bluntly ground out before he turned on his heels but Sam suddenly squeezed between him and the door, blocked his escape.

"Dean, it wasn't you," Sam implored, needed his brother to get past his guilt. "I trust you." And he again held out the hammer for his brother to take hold of, the same hammer that demon Dean had sought to bury in Sam's brain.

Dean recoiled from the hammer in Sam's hold, retreated further back into his brother's room. "Sam….just ….no." Felt like touching that hammer, it would remind him too much of the last time, his blood lust to see Sam die, the hatred brimming in every pore he owned. Still remembered, like it was only moments ago, the horrifying reality washing over him when the purified blood did it's cleansing of how close he had come to killing his own brother, completing the Mark's wish #1. How he had dropped to his knees, gasping for breath when Sam released him from the cuffs, tried to help him from the chair.

But Sam was merciless, pursued Dean until Dean's back slammed into the far wall, until Dean had nowhere else to go. "Sam, don't," Dean pleaded, felt his chin tremble with the sob fighting to be free, was pressing his head against the wall so hard he thought he would go through it. He didn't want to unleash that dark part of himself again, didn't want to chance hurting Sam ever again. Needed to stay locked down, to know his boundaries and remember his failures and hold himself accountable for them.

At Dean's reaction, Sam felt his own eyes well, didn't want to hurt Dean more but knew his brother was hurting himself, doling out punishment to himself for actions he had had no control over. Dropping the hammer onto the bed, he faced his brother. "I'm not going to let you carry guilt and shame that's not your fault, Dean. I'm not going to stand by and let you rip yourself apart from the inside out. I know about hurting people you love with your own hands."

"Kevin was my fault!" Dean ground out, didn't want Sam to continue to carry that weight.

"I'm talking about the times I hurt you….when I nearly strangled you to death when I was on demon blood, when I shot you while possessed by Meg, when I emptied rock salt into your chest at that asylum, when I let you get turned into a vampire. Me, my hands, my weakness."

"You weren't in control, Sam," Dean defended his little brother, which Sam latched onto readily.

"And neither were you," Sam quietly but firmly volleyed back, causing Dean to stiffen against the wall. "Dean, you can't blame yourself for the exact same thing that you've given me a free pass on, that's not how this brother thing works. So either I'm guilty of hurting you all those times….or you're innocent of trying to hurt me with some lame carpenter's chose of weaponry."

For a moment, Dean didn't breath then he inhaled sharply and hung his head, felt his brother's hand wrap around the base of his neck and then he was pulled into his brother's hold. "It's just a stupid hammer, Dean. It's not a cursed object…and neither are you, ok. I'm over it and now so are you. Got that?"

Sam felt Dean's head rock against his chest in a nod of agreement and he let out a soul deep sigh of relief. When Dean lifted his head, met his eyes, Sam knew that Dean was accepting at least some of his absolution. Bracketing Dean's face, he said in his I'm-trying-to-be-taken-seriously-but-I'm-totally-not-being-serious tone, "Now, are you going to help me decorate my room… or is hanging pictures too girly for you?"

"Pretty much…but for you, I'll manage," Dean hoarsely replied, trying to wipe away the anguish. Then Sam was presenting him with that friggin' hammer again…and this time he took it, didn't feel hatred or blood lust or …even that well of guilt as it fit into his palm. Knowing that Sam was watching him, he raised his head and nodded that he was ok in response to the question in his brother's eyes.

Going back to his bureau, Sam picked up th picture frame again, pointed to a place on the east wall. "Figured this could go there." Then he handed the picture frame to Dean. "What do you think?"

Unprepared to see a picture of himself and Sam in the frame, Dean drew in a sharp inhale, his eyes flying up to his brother's.

Sam shrugged a little guiltily. "Stole it from your collection. Just feels….right, hanging it up. I know we're not your traditional family but I think our home should still have pictures."

Dean's eyes widen when Sam referenced the Bunker as his "home". "I thought…" his voice thick before he swallowed down his emotions and continued, "I thought this wasn't a home. Was just….a few steps up from a motel."

Sam shuffled a little on his feet in shame. "Yeah, well, I was wrong…about a lot of things. And when you were… _gone_ …" his voice cracking on the word, "I knew what it once was and wouldn't be again until I got you back."

A little overwhelmed, Dean took a seat on the bed, knew his action worried Sam because his brother was suddenly crouched down in front of him, his hand on his knee. "That's what you said in the bar," Dean recalled, meeting Sam's gaze head on.

"What bar? When?" Sam asked, not sure what had Dean upset but willing to do anything to make it right.

"You said you had come to take me home," Dean felt his throat close up at the memories of Sam's words, words so unwanted by his demon self but so longed for by his human self.

Sam felt his own emotions surging to the surface, choked out in half a laugh and half a sob, "Yeah and you mocked me for it."

"Demon me was a real killjoy, huh?" Dean disparagingly sallied back, felt a tear slip free and run down his cheek.

"No fears that I'll be trading you in for him any time soon," Sam reassured, watching as some more of the anguish lifted from his brother's features.

Dean jangled the picture in his grip, remembered a thousand times laughing at Sam's side, that this picture captured just one moment out of a lifetime of contentment in each other's company. "Can't believe you stole this from me?!" he poured on the indignation.

"Hey, what's yours is mine and what's mine is yours," Sam justified his thievery before he crossed over to his desk drawer, pulled out anothe frame and dropped it into Dean's lap with an explanation of "Because I knew you'd whine…"

A matching photo stared up at Dean. Dean bestowed one of his real smiles on his brother. "You were afraid I'd give you a beat down for stealing my picture, weren't you?"

"No…" Sam emphatically denied before he smirked and confessed, "Maybe." Watched as Dean ran his fingers over the picture and the frame.

"Thanks Sammy…for…." Dean started but there weren't words for all that Sam had done for him, the picture the least of it.

"I know," Sam gently cut him off as their eyes held. He didn't need Dean to say thanks for things Sam wanted to do for him. For things Sam would do for Dean that Dean would never ask him to do, maybe never condone him to do for him. Because some things no one needed to tell you to do, you just did them out of love: like coming for your brother when he was lost and bringing him back home to you.

" **There was a distance between you and I  
A misunderstanding once but now  
We look it in the eye**

 **Life is a highway  
I want to ride it all night long  
If you're going my way  
I want to drive it all night long" ****

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THE END!

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** Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane

I can't thank everyone enough for being so generous with your praise and encouragement on this story! It made it a joy to post and easy to come up with the super long chapters.

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.


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